Note: Some poetry from 2021-2022 are unlisted in the Index of Titles.
A mutual sobriety
Ages ago I was stone.
You began shaping me into
a human being.
With that same great
chisel and hammer,
I’m now being reduced to
dust.
Sometimes, it’s hard to
keep my chin up
under the rain of Your
blows.
We have to stop meeting
like this –
a few hours of carousing
and I’m despondent for weeks.
Last night, I found a bit
of clarity
at the bottom of my cup –
I can’t expect to stumble
through every hour
drunk on Your bliss.
We have work to do
that demands a mutual
sobriety.
You, the sculptor with
Your careful dismantling;
me, the stone – holding
steady.
O child of God, the
Beloved serves His wine
for medicinal purposes only.
His hammer blows chisel
away the false.
A house for starlings
Bit by bit, my love grows
–
through the stone, briars
and tangles,
a pale reflection of Your
Love.
Spellbound by the moon in
the lake,
I can’t lift my eyes
toward the true moon,
but I feel it in my
blood.
Grapes must be crushed
before wine
can be served in
long-stemmed glasses.
Once the gourd is hollow,
it proves useful –
a musical instrument, a
dipper at the well
or a house for starlings.
What happens here happens
in the unseen realms.
How can we fathom our
path or progress?
Nothing lost and nothing
gained
but, somehow, You
promise, God emerges.
O child of God, it’s a
process and a journey.
Impatient one, you are
right on track.
The rasp of Your bow
Like an old coat,
You hung me in the
corner.
Now I’m collecting dust.
If I could only feel You
snug within me once more!
A fiddle mounted on the
wall,
no music comes from me.
O to feel the rasp of
Your bow!
Tuck me under Your chin;
let’s play a round or
two!
A lump of clay once
rolled in Your palms,
set aside, left unformed,
hardening by the hour.
O to feel myself shaped
by Your hands,
as Your hands once shaped
the language of Love.
O child of God, adjust
yourself to the Beloved’s whims.
Believe it when He says He
never leaves.
Precarious
Women from the well in
perfect balance,
water jars spilling not a
drop –
so I place my Beloved
above my head,
conducting this world’s
affairs.
How precarious it seems,
juggling my faith, here
and there,
often weighty and absurd
– a pain in the neck, really,
but I never think of
dumping it.
I’d rather be wrong about
my Beloved,
than right about atheism.
Other religions have
snapped under me,
their bones diseased to
the marrow,
but the burden of my
faith
in the Beloved has lifted
me –
at times, my whole being
threatening to fly away.
O child of God, you have
no choice in the matter.
The Ancient One has
knocked upon your door.
Heavy equipment
There’s a vineyard within
a graveyard;
a tomb on a hill built of
discarded stones,
the bones of a man Who
gave Himself
to a world that hurries
past now.
The wine from that
vineyard, grown
in the mandali’s dust,
cinders and bones,
intoxicates me.
I’ve never completely
recovered
my former sobriety.
I can’t be trusted to
walk a straight line
or operate heavy equipment!
I stepped out of the Tomb
one morning
onto uneven terrain. O Lord,
I don’t know what to do
when You strand me like this.
If You never come back,
I’ll die here –
on the corner where You
left me.
O child of God, if the
Master never returns,
it’s just another way of
His keeping His promise.
Extraordinary forms
So many masters in the
world promising heaven.
I belong to the One Who
declared Himself
free
from all promises!
I’m in exile; down to the
bitter dregs.
Now, You say, the real
work begins.
I’m nostalgic for that
moonlit garden;
the fragrance of Your
sanctuary . . . .
But the artist, You say,
sculpts in a studio
far from the garden’s
pedestal.
No slaughterhouse in a
field of lilies,
nor butcher’s table
beneath the pergola.
Love takes extraordinary
forms --
disillusionment, grief,
chaos, despair.
Not for the weak, nor the
faint-hearted.
There’s ample evidence of
that!
O child of God, the One
Who seems so far away,
is at your elbow, sword
in hand.
(photo by Bob Aherns)
The fruit sublime
Climb out farther on the
limb,
the utmost ends,
where the sublime fruit
grows,
only the rare ones eat –
assorted birds,
extraordinary climbers,
graceful, long-throated
beasts.
You’ve been rooted too
long in the shadows,
settling for the
ordinary.
Climb where the limbs
splay and sag
under your weight;
know the body’s full
price.
Your soul, fed on such
fruit, eventually
will leave this
entanglement
and with the birds soar
the farthest reaches of
the sky.
O child of God, you’ll
transcend this realm,
when you’ve developed a
taste for the fruit sublime.
Utter stillness
I have always adopted, in
this human dilemma,
the rational approach,
but, secretly, I long for
a love that makes no sense.
My every motive is
self-preservation,
while my heart’s wings
propel me, inexorably,
toward oblivion.
Let those royal falcons
build their nests
in the clefts and crags
of Your holy mountain.
I want only to throw
myself over the edge.
Let them haunt the rugged
peaks.
My fate is farther down
the slope,
where Your ocean swallows
me.
Below that rugged
exterior lie
the quiet disintegration
and utter stillness I crave.
O child of God, your
longing is romantic and self-serving.
When will you see
yourself as you really are?
Sweet on the tongue
They gave You a lovely
name,
sweet on the tongue –
they called You Mercy.
Other names would have
sufficed –
Purity . . . Valor . . .
Fidelity –
but not quite hit the
mark.
Mercy is what we’re
begging for
with Your name on our
lips.
O Meher – Compassionate
One,
sweet on the tongue,
the sacred Rose around
which
a multitude of
nightingales –
Your name in their mouths
–
gathers and sings, hoping
to catch Your ear.
O child of God, the
Beloved has a thousand names.
Call Him by the one that
drips like sugar
from your lips and tongue.
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