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.
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.
