The merest shadow

The merest shadow                                                                                           
                                                                                                        
Before I met You I was a devout believer,
clinging to a hundred stolen truths.
 
Now I find I am slowly losing my religion.
When it’s gone, when my pockets are empty,
 
I’ll float above this world like an angel.
One day there will be nothing left of me,
 
not the vaguest hint of a semblance
of the merest shadow of a dream.
 
I removed my sandals, but my bare feet
stain the surface of Your pure stone floor.
 
This flesh and blood, unholy container
taints the atmosphere of Your immaculate shrine. 
 
O Lord, what is at the heart of me
that You tolerate such intolerable insults
 
and move ever closer, become ever
more intimate and involved?
 
O child of God, if you are made of clay, how will you
          ever be scrubbed clean?
Your Beloved is drawn to the inviolate Source
          of who you really are.

Your damaan

Your damaan
 
O Friend, whatever it takes, I am holding on to You.
Through rough treatment, barren patches,
 
through episodes of almost unendurable intimacy,
I am holding on to You.
 
You broke open this heart of mine
and with Your lovely hands planted a seed.
 
I feel it now taking root in my chest.
One day it will pin me to the earth
 
and a huge, sheltering tree will grow.
Then, I might be worth something.
 
It’s cracking me open now,
letting in joy and pain and a great love.
 
I have the hem of that love in my hands.
I can only imagine the height and breadth of it
          in the dark.
 
My whole world has become this grip on Your damaan
and my accustoming myself to the rhythm of Your long, holy strides.
 
O child of God, don’t get lost.  Hold on
tightly and mightily to your Beloved.

A yellow wood

A yellow wood                                                                              
 
In a yellow wood, came I to a divergence –
the road I take the next leg of my journey,
 
the other a phantom companion. 
O Lord, let it be true that the freedom
 
and certainty of karma and fate rule the road
rather than my fear and ignorance
 
determining where I shall end up, 
the life I shall encounter along the way.
 
Praying to God I might set down at last
the staggering baggage of my presumed autonomy
 
on every more or less traveled road
taken or not taken and accept the long term
 
remedial grace and benevolence
of a hand-held, divinely-guided tour.
 
O child of God, you plot your itinerary
knowing not how you have arrived at where you are.

Before the angels

Before the angels                                                                                                                                               
A church bell at the end of my rope
might better suit.  I could tug it
 
instead of spouting words and we could both
listen to the tolls and the tolls fading.   
 
The world at my windows is growing fainter, too,
little by little not quite there, having run out
 
of hocus pocus, steam and bluster which is all it ever was. 
The same faded repertoire to keep me at the knotted end;
 
coax me back from the cliff-edge darkness
into heavy traffic or inside the whispers and sighs
 
of so many naive and incoherent promises.
I have a darkness waiting for me and a depth
 
(I feel it), a light in the midst and so I repair, repair
with my Beloved into solitude and companionship,
 
mystery and resolution as the world in its wrong-headed way
keeps showing me how so very little I truly have to lose.
 
O child of God, lose yourself as best you might
before the angels come to cart you away.

 

The preliminary beauty

The preliminary beauty                                                                            
 
Aren’t we beautiful?  Aren’t we brave?
We try so hard
 
to please our Lord, to serve Him,
to give of ourselves, to connect with others.
 
We are not very good at it
but doesn’t that strengthen our resolve?
 
My very young granddaughter
is just learning to use her fingers.
 
Grasping clumsily at objects. 
Trying to fathom again and again
 
the how and why of it.
She’s not very good at it,
 
but it’s the beauty of her efforts,
the concentration, determination
 
and my already knowing she will one day
use her hands with such perfect grace
 
to express her love, to give and receive,
to serve and please her Lord.
 
O child of God, the more you see the preliminary beauty
the nearer you are to the viewpoint of God. 

Bullock cart

Bullock cart                                                                                       
 
A lame man riding through the dark
in the bed of a bullock cart, a pummeling
 
with each pothole, road rut;
the destination vague and remote.
 
No stopping, no turning back. A perfect One
holds the reins, His mere presence
 
making the journey bearable,
His authority fleshing out
 
certain ancient stories
of the valiant and persistent. 
 
Meher gave the lepers comfort, not healing. 
The cure was there already, in the process of time,
 
in the death of diseased bodies and the taking
of new ones.  Comfort was His gift.  
 
Nursing my wounds in the dark,
I see clearly now my own eventual cure
 
somewhere beyond the thumps of time and distance,
assured by the promise and nature of the malady,
 
as the old cart shudders, rumbles along, winding its way
towards the dawn and those inevitable, far-away gates.
 
O child of God, Meher says every bump in the road
is a shedding and a shaping of your eventual perfection.

Think of Noah

Think of Noah                                                                              
 
Start your own project, Rumi advised. 
As absurd as Noah laboring daily
 
in the sandy shade of the ship’s hulk,
not a drop to show for all his devotion,
 
his lofty pronouncements and endeavors.
His self-opposition far harder to ignore
 
than the public’s derision, those habitual lapses
of faith and resolve – empty, arid days,
 
nights of isolation and confusion,
seductive arguments for capitulation and abandonment.
 
And doubt!  Would it not all come down
to a great dusty naught?  Start your own project,
 
Rumi advised, constructed daily –
the ribs of an inward, sturdy vessel
 
contrary to your own and all apparent
worldly reason, wisdom and evidence.
 
O child of God, whenever you distrust
your inner God-directed duties, think of Noah.

Graveyard gates

Graveyard gates                                                                               
 
I have come not to teach, said my Lord.
Liberation, apparently, not something you learn how to do. 
 
With this lifetime of accumulated knowledge,
it’s difficult to become a vessel now with a perfectly hollow ring.
 
There’s an old joke about a drunk
stumbling into an open grave.
 
I’ve forgotten the punch line.  I’ve dug my own grave;
settled into the bottom, studying the sky.
 
I can dig no deeper nor climb back to the surface.
I thought the virtue of patience
 
referred to the length of the journey.
Now I see it only begins
 
when the path veers from the highway
and enters through the graveyard gates.
 
O child of God, how stubbornly you cling
to the only thing you know.

Blithe aplomb

Blithe aplomb
 
Saint Francis took to the hills of Umbria,
radiating sheer joy (all the poor fellow owned).
 
It came as a reminder. Where had failed
clergy, scripture, pomposity and ritual
 
and the wilderness cry of the human heart,
prevailed this young man’s mute testimony
 
to stay the brutal stones, feed empty souls,
draw his future sisters and brothers.
 
Otherwise, who would have followed
through the snow those mad footprints,
 
were it not for joy and the fire’s roar
of his Jesus-love above any frail warmth
 
or posturing the world could offer?
One drop of the holy wine Francis
 
handled with such blithe aplomb
and hearts were kindled, souls reminded,
 
keenly felt then their own lack of joy –
a memory lost in their dimly remembered past.
 
O child of God, to love your Lord
as did Saint Francis, is to please Him.