In the drink
Everyone is in the drink
–
laboring to keep their
heads above water;
no piece of solid real
estate
in this vast sea of
illusion
upon which to make a
stand,
gain a foothold – a
perspective, stability, bearings.
Some are swift and fancy
swimmers,
others fat and lightly
floating,
some sink like stones
but,
everyone, everyone, is in
the drink,
paddling about, waiting
for the One
Who walks upon water;
Who surveys the horizon
and sets the course;
Who offers navigation,
buoyancy, consolation;
truth, hope, explanation.
Be kind, o child, and
dubious,
studious and soft-spoken;
be clear-headed,
one-pointed, alert.
O child of God, everyone
is in the drink
until they drown in the
Ocean of Love.
The illusion of God’s
absence
The rich have their
diamonds and pearls;
the poor – the moon and
stars;
the pauper emerges from a
cramped hovel,
peers upward into a
starry night
going on forever. Upon every doorstep –
the infinite sky, the
eternal now,
filling us up everywhere
we turn
upon the spectrum of
agony to ecstasy.
The Lord is our shepherd
– we shall not want.
Every brimful moment – we
shall not want.
No one is slighted; no
one goes without.
Our inheritance – our
just and proper due –
life in minutia, in all
extremes,
the essence and price of
being human.
Preference creates the
illusion of want. Judgment
and desire create the
illusion of God’s absence.
O child of God, cultivate
indiscriminate gratitude;
purchase Oneness with the
jewel of desirelessness.
O child of God, in the
stone’s crevice
shall bloom the perfect
rose.
Just shining
You are the Light of the
world
and light makes no
sound. It just shines.
Those who couldn’t see
the Light asked for words.
You pointed out certain
arrangements
resembling the Light and later
wrung from the air
approximations that
delighted Your lovers –
they printed up cards,
pamphlets,
magazines and books. How sad for You,
at times, also, for the
Mandali, Your flesh ablaze,
eyes aglow, the roaring
fire inside
and Your lovers in their
blind faith
praise and bow and
plaintively beseech You
for descriptions of the
Light. For evidence,
for instructions; for
intimations,
for directions to the
Light. O my Lord,
You are the Light of the
world
and You took birth to
shine Your Truth,
silently; silent – just
shining. Just shining.
O child of God, he who is
blind, let him
muck about in the
business of words.
Ottoman
I consulted a dictionary,
thick as any gravestone,
the meaning of each word
only given in terms of
other words
whose meanings must also
be
looked up and so
around and around we go
--
illusory, inclusive world
of words
created by barking,
braying,
warbling and lamenting,
cooing and crooning,
flesh-throated human beings –
our wordiness letting no
truth in edgewise.
Your love I find
inexplicable, indefinable, unutterable –
Your love – all You ever
talked about (in Your silence).
Silence I dare not keep –
the truth of myself
might shine forth for all
to see. I dare not shine.
I dare not embrace, so I
go home
and write a poem about
shining, embracing –
a pillow made of my
dictionary,
an ottoman of my
phonebook.
O child of God, words
never tell the Truth
yet, they are the only
means at your disposal.
God was born
God was born (as any
lover will attest)
at David Sassoon Hospital
in Pune, India
more than a century ago
now. That is to say,
God entered the mortal
realm an embryo in a womb –
vulnerable, dependent,
miniscule and yet, growing
inexorably toward
fruition. Nothing can hold back God;
His precisely scheduled
manifestation.
Even Jesus (of the
ascension and the miraculous birth)
began a floating fish in
a woman’s belly.
O seeker of God, God is
within you,
right now -- (it’s
how He enters the realm).
Within you –vulnerable,
dependent, miniscule, yes,
but growing every moment,
inexorably toward fruition.
And, in the course of His
love and law,
He shall outgrow the
flesh that encapsulates Him,
transcend the mind that
ensnares and escape
forever the narrow,
bedimmed, illusory confines
of your self. O seeker, nothing can hold back
the God within you nor
prevent His destined,
precisely scheduled
manifestation.
O child of God, where is
your patience? Everyone –
Meher Baba says –is
destined for the supreme goal.
O faith of mine
O faith of mine, o faith,
I run through you daily.
I run through you with
feet of clay –
like running with a kite
over the hardscrabble
landscape,
until the wind can catch
it
and I can stop, stand my
ground,
sufficient tension upon
the string
to keep the kite
effortlessly floating.
O faith of mine, o faith
of sticks and paper,
string and wire,
I manage you warily,
hands cupped in prayer.
You are my icon, my
silent, bright relic.
You bind my life together
at the end of this line –
my gathered, disparate,
quavering self –
and keep my face turned
upward
toward the floating,
moon-like, bright-shining
kite above the
hardscrabble turf.
O child of God, faith is
the evidence of God’s mercy –
the inward concern turned
outward.
In lieu of silence
In lieu of silence, I
offer this poem.
In lieu of surrender, I
offer this prayer.
Unable with my whole
heart to praise You,
I compose these poems of
praise,
mitigated by inquiry and
complaint;
by words themselves. In lieu of conviction,
I assiduously examine and
guard my faith,
lest a wall should crumble,
a foundation crack.
In my lack of poise,
I lay at Your feet my
desperation
and because my obedience
is so shaky,
I repeat constantly my
repentances
for the breaking of my
high-minded vows.
I can’t live up to Your
measure
but, You are the measure. It is You
for Whom I break my own
silence,
reaching out of my shell
with petitions,
questions, grievances and
grief.
You are the Hub around
which my thoughts,
my being revolve in this
mad, whirling experience
in which I find myself
and hope,
one day, to lose myself
and find You.
O child of God, when a
poem breaks your heart
you know you’ve moved a
smidgen closer to the core.
A shared life
The island of the
zygote
floating minuscule and
fragile;
the fetus in the womb –
so vulnerable, so
vulnerable.
The island in my head –
so insubstantial,
so subjective; me inside
my skin – so mortal;
the island in my chest –
so isolated, so lonely.
White spit of sand in the
middle
of a dark blue sea until
the Ocean Itself
leaves footprints along
the shore.
Accustom yourself, its
pattern reads,
to a shared life. And for years now,
my island fortress has
been shrinking
under the determined
elements of truth –
wild winds, brutal
storms, the heavy seas.
When every place you
trust underfoot is gone;
everything you thought
solid proven flimsy,
the truth will swim into
view –
truth to drown in; truth
vast as the Ocean
encircling your sad and
dwindling little island.
O child of God, everyone
is an island
until reclaimed by the
Ocean of Love.
Head over heels
To indicate the effect
breaking His silence
would have upon the
world,
Meher Baba once cupped
His hands
to form a globe and then,
deftly, flipped it over.
Why shouldn’t I believe
Him?
Secure within the
predictable
and familiar orbits and
juxtapositions
of various touchstones
and landmarks,
well-accustomed to the
daunting pattern
of stars spinning above
my head,
the dependable earth
beneath my feet,
my Lord, mercifully,
upended my world,
set me upon a path
through foreign territory –
everything new, strange
and oddly out of whack.
Even today, years later,
whenever I come close
to regaining my
equilibrium, re-acquiring my bearings,
with a swift sweep of His
hand, He clears the playing board.
He once formed a globe
with His hands and then, flipped it.
Upside down, someone said,
interpreting the gesture.
No, He wryly
corrected. Right side up!
O child of God, celebrate
the moment you fell
head over heels in love
with your Beloved.
Where do I go?
Where do I go to get my
innocence back?
O fresh-cheeked, joyous,
clear-eyed boy!
Shall I break the news to
you?
I sold you out – ages
ago, for shining trifles.
Innocence strewn and
squandered,
compliance wheedled and
coaxed –
secret indulgences,
anonymous compromises,
a whisper and a hope . .
. and all for love;
all for love but I lacked
the courage.
Beaten up, pasted over,
trampled under,
I betrayed you and failed
you and here you are again,
o innocent one, forgiving
me, begging me to come clean.
I have no promises to
make. It will take courage;
all the courage I never
had –
the countless moments of
truth
that came and went and
found me wanting.
Where do I go to find
that courage?
To get my innocence
back?
Here, said my Beloved.
Come here. Come to Me.
O child of God, your
pretenses worn threadbare,
let your humble, homely
truth shine through.
The business of love
I love you more, said Meher Baba,
than you could ever love
yourself.
My self not in the
business of love –
neither payments nor
debts;
my self – the absence of
love
and love – the absence of
self.
Not finding love within
ourselves, we look to other selves –
who look to us across the
great divide.
The love of which my Lord
speaks
offers neither barter nor
bargain –
love not because of what
we might give
(or receive) but what
might empty us,
what might make room, make
room –
make room for Love; make
room for God.
O child of God, what is
this business of love?
Meher says it’s the
essence of your being.
Wrens and sparrows
I write my poetry on a
crust of bread
I found in the bottom of
my pouch,
dropping crumbs along the
path
for the wrens and
sparrows.
I won’t be coming back
this way and no one will
follow
into this particular plot
of trees.
The woods are deep. I’ll write
as long as the light
holds out.
God illumines the path
only one step at a time
and my own torch has been
thrown down.
It’s like a crust of
bread –
the moon above the
horizon.
My mortal existence is a
crust of bread.
This poem is dedicated
to the wrens and
sparrows.
I wish I had more to
give.
O child of God, venture
where there is blitheness
in dissolution; unalloyed
bliss in obliteration.
Too much like death
You lived in
silence. I can’t abide it.
Too much like death. Even while
lying motionless and mute
in the casket
You’ve so lovingly
fashioned for me,
my mind is stubbornly
asking questions,
roaming the known
parameters.
I climbed in willingly
enough.
Made myself
comfortable.
I don’t regret it. But this protracted interment
is as stylized and boring
as any funeral ever was
and still I haven’t the
courage
to clamp down the lid
long enough
for You to sink the
nails.
You came not to teach but
to awaken.
Lucky for me – because I
never seem to learn.
And, instead of holding
onto Your damaan,
being dragged pell-mell
into the Infinite-Eternal,
I hold tightly to the ragged shirttail
of this wanton, roaring
world; the sad
and flustered illusion of
my false self.
O child of God, hold your
tongue and let
Meher’s silence become
your last triumphant shout.
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.
