The powers that be
My house is lonely
tonight.
I step into the backyard
–
fenced in, sub-divided;
stars fixed above the
trees,
the moon turning its cold
shoulder.
I feel small,
over-looked, left behind
in the vastness. After a time, I notice
the moon shadows crossing
the lawn –
I am getting
somewhere –
in spite of myself.
The earth turning me,
hurtling me
around the sun, also, on
a journey
toward its ultimate
destiny.
I might seem inert,
broken down,
stuck in an ineffectual
rut but,
eternal forces are ever
rushing me,
in their own sweet time,
toward a rendezvous.
My choice – to have faith
in the benevolence
of the powers that be
or, lack faith and
despair
as I languish behind the
high, sturdy fence
I have erected for
myself.
O child of God, don’t
worry, be happy.
Despair, in any case,
will gain you nothing.
(drawing by Rich Panico)
Enter the desert
Enter the desert a
wanderer,
uncharted among the
dunes,
under the stars; shaped
by pressures
only hinted at,
half-guessed,
gestured toward; suitable
to your nature,
without respite, witness
or glamour –
to be a lover is to go it
alone.
Swaying upon the bridge,
the temptress sings;
the sculptor at the
monolith, hewing away.
Caught up in a terrible
game of words,
the poet grapples for
whatever
endurable term might bare
a slice of the loneliness
that constitutes a human
heart.
Hewing away at it alone –
that’s what we are
and the truth of that
is the truth of God
to be elaborated upon,
the one and only Truth –
God alone exists.
O child of God, brave the
lonely perils;
seek the truth of the One
and Only.
Make good
All my words hang on a
promise I cannot make
and cannot keep – a
vanity of imagination,
breath and blood, if the
promise has no maker;
if the promise has no
keeper.
Shall I continue, o Lord,
to tap out
Your timeworn promise on
my alphabet board?
Grace, love, salvation –
fine sentiments!
but, paper-thin words,
and – through my throat –
without substance or
luminosity;
indistinct stirrings in
the half-light,
the nether-world, the
darkness
of ignorance mixed with
the darkness of faith;
yet, my poems praise the
promise
and the
Promise-keeper! Lord, don’t leave me
twisting wordlessly in
the wind
at world’s end but,
gather me sweetly
in Your arms and make
good, make good,
make good Your
ancient-given promise.
O child of God, what the
Beloved requires of you
is faith, forbearance,
obedience and attempted artistry.
Spoken for
Love, You say, asks no
questions.
My heart’s not yet
speechless
but, my mind’s onto the
truth
that all questions lose
their validity
this side of the veil. To
ask is to break
the silent bond. It’s not
about believing
or not believing,
but about love . . .
or, not loving and the
longing
that’s always there
and the despair that
inhabits
every laugh and stride
and smile,
every social nuance, as
we bide our time,
do what we must, granting
solace,
here and there, to
ourselves and the world
far from the Avatar and
the key.
Though, we are lost, we
are in His hands,
and that is all
the difference . . .
and that is all
the difference.
O child of God, why keep
speaking?
You are already spoken
for.
God’s long shadow
Another journey awaits
us, o pilgrim,
through the broken gate,
the unkempt garden.
Death walks this fine
morning in God’s
long shadow – efficient,
indefatigable servant.
Even Jesus died and those
He detached
from Death’s arm soon
returned
dutifully to resume their
coupled trailing
through the lily-rucked
garden,
the rank and dew-drenched
garden.
The body of Jamshed
arranged in the Tower of
Silence
and the Master distributing
sweet laddoos –
Do not make the dead
unhappy,
Baba scolded, by your
weeping and wailing.
Jamshed was my brother, Meher averred,
but I am Jam Sheth – Death’s Master.
Death has brought Jamshed
to Me.
O child of God, living is
dying by loving.
Only the truly dead are
beyond Death’s grasp.
A hint of why
The Ocean has come again
to tell us we are not
adrift;
(more like a river running,
towards
and away, of urgency and
purpose).
The Ocean has come again,
with embracing, sighs and
gazes,
the wiping away of tears,
to tell us we are not
islands.
The Ocean, Its labyrinths
of Love and endeavor,
vast, breathless depths,
come again
to tell us we have no
shore,
strongest evidence to the
contrary;
no beginning nor end;
enemies
and companions – all are
our very own Self.
The Ocean has come again
to tell us our loneliness
is but a bitter-tinged
drop
in the immeasurable
loneliness of God.
O child of God, such an
import offers a hint
of why Meher lived in
silence.
Finding grace
Mehera asked, years ago,
why You chose
so barren a place for
Your ashram
(and Your Tomb) landscape
of dust
and thorns; scorpions,
cobras and kraits.
Then, My lovers, You said,
will come only for Me,
nothing else.
These days, You’ve turned
much of my world into
dust and thorns –
a bleak, prickly terrain
devoid of sustenance and
satiation,
rife with scrapes, stings
and venom,
so that each day, I show
up only for You
and when side-tracked,
return only to You,
as the friendly ground
shrivels
and the periphery grows
wilder,
more and more, finding
grace
in the isolation and
disparity,
in eccentricity,
disillusionment and despair.
O child of God, rejoice when
your life becomes a Tomb
in the desolate region of
a strange land.
The bruising rose
You told the story of an
innocent woman
accused of adultery –
tied to a post in the
marketplace,
everyone who passed
required by law
to cast a stone or some
filth upon her ...
which she endured with a
noble dignity;
her daughter was brought
forth, throwing
not a stone nor filth
but, a simple rose ...
and the mother shrieking
in agony
as it brushed her cheek.
Let he who is without sin
cast the first stone,
You told the crowd in
another marketplace.
You, of course, could
have cast that stone,
but You have come down,
bound Yourself
among the stones and
filth
of our marketplaces to
endure unjustly
the fateful punishments
of being human
and to weigh in Your
innocent hands
the culpability of each
stone-and-rose-wielding
patron, each laboring,
fearful heart.
O child of God, the
Beloved is ever merciful.
Protect Him from the
bruising rose of your infidelity.
The prayer of Immensity
I used to crawl through
the Universal Prayer
on my hands and knees,
entering through a hatch
in the O before
Parvardigar.
By lying flat, twisting
myself here and there,
I could inch my way to
the last word of worship.
But, one morning, midway
through, I tripped
a hidden switch or
brushed a secret lever,
or, perhaps, it was the
power of one word
spoken with heartfelt
sincerity –
the whole prayer expanded
to the dimensions
of the descriptions
within it.
Not just the firmament
and the depths,
but on all planes and
beyond . . .
the three worlds and
beyond . . .
the source of Truth, the
Ocean of Love,
beyond and beyond and
still yet beyond . . .
time and space,
imagination and conception.
I found myself in an endless
void as the words
of the prayer rose to my
lips and faded in my ears.
O child of God, this is
the prayer of Immensity –
the Immeasurable, the
Unnamable and Incomprehensible.
O child of God, recite
faithfully the Universal Prayer.
It’s about you and who
you really are.
Grace intruded
Grace intruded upon my
habitual sorrow
and marked me for its own
like a pattern of ink
under the skin,
like an imperfectly
minted coin,
a misprinted postage
stamp
or a raw diamond selected
for its flaws.
Plucked like a flower
for a vase on a bedside
table;
like a wild colt culled
from the herd –
lassoed, corralled and
broken;
like a shell found on the
beach
or an injured bird unable
to pursue
its migratory route,
I left the broad path
for the narrow and the
crooked
and now – no path at all
. . .
making my way as everyone
must
who tramps toward the
gates –
without precedent,
yet, with a Companion who
by turns comforts,
inspires, fortifies and
illumines the way ahead.
O child of God, Grace is
beyond your ken.
To whom much is given much is required.
The crux of embrace
As its fragrance is
hidden in the rose,
my Beloved said,
so My presence is hidden
in the human heart.
Under our noses, Lord –
undetected
within ourselves and
others.
Only faith and desire
keep us daring
the crux of embrace.
Yes, the heart gets tipsy
at the first nip
of Your wine – dances in
it’s cage;
deeper in the cup, it
grows weepy and ponderous.
And when Your fire sweeps
through –
first, a searing pain,
then . . . burned rubble
from which to look out
sheepishly upon the world.
But, You promised us, You
promised Your presence
every moment woven into
the heart’s delicate
warp and weft, so pervasively,
the rose,
having never set tender
foot beyond its vast domain,
goes about wailing and
weeping
at the absence of its own
scent.
O child of God, turn from
the world’s enticements
to discover within, the
fragrance of God.
The darshan moment
Living for tomorrow
is a pilgrim in the
queue,
absently fingering a
garland,
inching his way toward
darshan.
Living in the past – a
pilgrim
walking back to the
retreat
empty-handed under the
stars,
the warmth fading in his
chest.
O pilgrim! Edge your way into the darshan moment!
Within the doors you’ve
burst through,
in the kneeling and
bowing moment,
on the floor of cold
stone tears.
He awaits you – expects
you – every moment,
a cleft of shoulder and
neck
in which to hide your crumbling
face
and empty your heart; a
pillar to lean on,
a gaze from eyes shining
with an unearthly love.
O child of God, live in
the darshan moment.
Before and after are the
nuances of a listless dream.
Confine yourself
O Meher, You confined
Yourself – in the Jopdhi,
in the table-cabin, in
the bamboo cage,
in sundry mountain caves,
in the blue bus,
in a hut atop Tembi Hill;
in the crypt before . . .
and after
it became Your Tomb.
You confined Yourself –
in Your great Silence; in
Your human body.
You confined Yourself,
perhaps
to show how we might be
free.
O pilgrim, retire now to
the narrow,
holy cell of remembrance;
of contemplation
and meditation; fetter
your mind and tongue
to the unyielding
repetition of His name.
Confine yourself to God.
If God is not enough,
what is?
O child of God, it’s
Illusion that’s restrictive,
repetitive and
tedious. The Truth of Meher is boundless.
Where my heart used to be
You left a ruby where my
heart used to be.
There’s a fire inside
that stone.
Now the world is a busy
dream
on the periphery of its
hard lucidity.
Now its heat and glow
is the gauge of my every
endeavor.
The myriad paths of my
calculations
peter out into sunlit
fields and green woods;
wires cross and sputter;
mechanisms derail.
Cause and effect? –
Hoisted on its own petard.
This balladeer is a
drunkard and a romantic, yes,
yet, when he stumbles and
injures himself,
he remains thoroughly
intoxicated,
his Dulcinea ever more
pure and wieldy.
Just so, the fire in the
stone
rules his prodigal heart
–
for what would deter it?
In joy, it burns. In suffering, it burns.
O child of God, nurture
the flame within.
This burning is the foot
path to liberation.
On parting
We wish each other the
best . . . but, really,
what might we hope for
one another?
Our itinerant Lord, from
the new life’s path,
spoke of hopelessness.
I begin to catch His
drift,
many hopes and partings
later.
To believe in Benevolence
Eternal
is to eschew hope, to
shake the dust
from our sandals every
step,
tendering the apples of
our eyes
what our Lord tenders . .
. hopeless love;
not a thought for
ourselves . . .
or others – hopeless love!
No prayers but praise for
the One
whose totality of Love
and Mercy
allows not hope’s grip
nor foothold.
O child of God, timid
hearts hope.
The brave-hearted love . . . regardless of outcome.
I love love best
Gratitude roams the ruins
of my heart –
the scales have tipped In
Your favor.
I’ve an urge to run
through the streets
shouting Your name.
Instead, I kneel and
slowly burn.
Dawn bears the same fire
on the eastern mullions.
It’s not so much that You
love me
but that You give me love
to give . . .
more and more, more and
more
and still yet more.
I know nothing of
worthiness, except
it has everything and
nothing to do with love!
O reader! What might we discuss
that you and I don’t
already know?
Like the elephant in the
dark –
everything is true at
once!
I love love best as a
fire in the chest – silently longing
for the whole house to
become ash and cinder.
O child of God, what is
there to say?
You are bewildered –
inside and out.
Don’t circle me
I’m a moth caught on
fire,
said the old
disciple. Don’t circle me.
I’m a moon whose silver
is stolen
from a hidden sun.
Don’t circle me.
I’m not the proof. I’m circumstantial evidence.
I’m a dancer who left the
ritual
to circle a greater
periphery,
to listen to a more
distant tune.
The Maypole is back
yonder.
Don’t circle me.
But, I can take the witness
stand;
point to the One who made
me like this.
I can reflect His
gold-red majesty,
the raging furnace of His
Being.
I can point to the Hub,
again and again,
standing apart from the
spinning crowd
and answer His
beneficence
with all the grace, art and
passion I can muster.
O child of God, Meher
gives you the Light
no darkness can dispel.
Whole cloth
I rub my nose on the
carpet before Your chair.
How long before the
fabric shreds
and the stone beneath
gives way? How long
before I sink into the
dust below?
That celebrated widow put
her two cents
into the temple
treasury.
Jesus extolled her faith
and generosity –
it was all she had! I’m worth two cents!
Yet, I can’t seem to part
with myself!
O child, not the quality,
nor quantity of the gift,
He’s concerned with –
but, the commitment, the
abandonment,
the whole cloth, full
measure,
draining of the cup to
the last drop.
O child of God, Your
Beloved quotes the poet –
“Hafiz, remove thyself
for thou art the veil.”
Elephant shapes
This spinning earth from
time to time,
may turn my head
but, I dare not long
neglect my duties –
too many who depend on
me,
eyes uncertain asking –
How are things on your
side?
Any news from up
river?
Father shuffling toward
another death,
mother befuddled with
fear;
loved ones sent out daily
to gather
fresh greens in abandoned
minefields.
Whistle while you work,
my Beloved advises,
but, keep digging.
The stench of death is on
the breeze;
crocodiles at the
watering hole,
only their eyes visible
above the surface.
I keep an ear to the
rail; gleaning
what I can from the
shimmering air –
for my own files, of
course,
but also, for loved ones
who keep asking for the
truth
of rescue and escape.
I’ve little time left for
pottering about,
pursuing pleasure,
arguing in the dark over
elephant shapes.
O child of God,
everything is in His hands and yet,
there’s much work to do
before winter sets in.
