Just shining

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

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                                                                                
 
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 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                                                                                      
 
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

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

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?                                                                                 
 
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.