The only one in the room

The only one in the room                                                                                     

In Your presence (and in their memory)

often they would say

You were the only one in the room.

Even Eruch (or some other) interpreting

your gestures or reading the board

became a disembodied voice

as they beheld You –

the essence of Love and Truth,

the only one in the room.

These latter days when we

are alone together so often,

let it be my meditation

to dwell upon You

until You are once more

the only one in the room,

leaving this illusory life,

myself and all the insistent,

suffering world behind.

O child of God, within and without, Meher said,

present and past, existent or imagined, God alone is real.

At cycle's end

At cycle’s end                                                                                                  

You even put it into prayer –
the plea for God to help us
 
hold fast to Your damaan
when, as You predicted,
 
things got rough at cycle’s end
and how easy it would be  
 
to lose our grip in the upheaval
of a world turned right side up.
 
And God has provided us, in silent aid and answer,
with no one and nothing else to cling to but You.
 
O child, God has backed you into a corner
so you might face Him at last.

A horse-hooved knowledge

Horse-hooved knowledge 

A lifetime of wandering here and there
among the trees looking for the forest.
 
A plastic sequin on a cheap gown –
such it is that snags the mind –
 
spangles not only worthless but pernicious
for they divert us from the real and the true.
 
At ocean’s shore the galloping horse stumbles,
unable to enter deeply where it can neither
 
stand nor swim or float; rear or whinny –
do anything other than drown
 
in wild, flaring confusion.  We cling
to the shore and the horse that got us there. 
 
Numerous lifetimes it takes to know
we do not know, can never know
 
anything of the ocean, anything of where
the horse is a foreign, ineffectual creature;
 
anything but the dust-ridden,
horse-hooved knowledge
 
that keeps us ever on the scent, ever
following one false trail after another.
 
O child of God, the mind reigns in duality
but can never leave itself to reach beyond.

 

There is a crushing

 There is a crushing                                                                                              

“How do I escape suffering, Lord”,
 And He gave me an answer (though I am reluctant to hear). 

 

It seems there is a crushing and a transfiguration. 
Grain becomes bread; grapes become wine,

then upon our tongues and in our throats, 
we partake of the body and blood of Christ.  

There’s no rescue (praise God for that, He tells me),
only endurance and culmination;
 
the end of hope and then, an awakening.
Only a trust in the process,

 

in the necessity and the outcome; 
Faith in love, in the Maker and the Father.
 
All shall be well (He revealed to one lover, centuries ago).
All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.
 
O child of God, request not rescue
but solace, strength and conviction.

This odd pitch of clay

This odd pitch of clay (birthday poem)                                                            

I’m carrying a torch for You.
I have used it to explore and experience
 
Your creatures and creation
and to search (ironically) for the Light
 
I once mistook for my own –
the Light that is You.
 
This odd pitch of clay will nevermore return. 
It is God Who will take another body.
 
There’s only God.  And as I labor now
to keep aloft, alight, this torch in my last days,
 
I find that I’m carrying it for You, carrying
a shimmering, splintered portion of You
 
back toward the foundry of creation –
toward that inevitable reunion
 
of You with Yourself –
the origin of fire and light.
 
O child of God, you are but a brief spark
from the forge and hammer of the Creator.

That clear still center

That clear still center                                                                                

If I had my way, I’d never come back

to another lifetime of sin and ignorance,

causing pain and harm to myself and others.

But that’s no virtue –

not wanting to cause suffering.  

It’s just another desire – the root of suffering,

the barrier to surrender and non-return. 

In the realm of illusion

where might pure virtue be found?

Purity has nothing to do with perfection.

It has to do, apparently, with getting off the wheel

onto that clear still center even as

the rest of the world shakes and gyres,

rattles and quakes, wavers around you.

If I had my way, I’d never come back

but then – it’s never been about me having my way.

O child of God, round and round and round you go,

too drunk to find your way off the dance floor.

Become the sought

Become the sought                                                                                               

Fool that I am, I have searched for You all these years –

the One Who is everywhere and in everything.

I’m not sure of what I’m seeking

but You’ve given it a name:  Meher Baba.  

I suppose I’m nearer the goal after all this time.

I’ve no way to gauge the distance.

You didn’t come to teach

and I’ve learned nothing of consequence.

Either I am You or Your creature

or somehow both and I’ll end up with You

some lifetime or another – or not.

You might never be mine

but just the same I belong to You.

I may be a fool but I’m Your fool,

hoping to die

with Your name on my lips.

O child of God, Meher said stop seeking

and become the sought.

Bottleneck

Bottleneck                                                                                                 

There’s a bottleneck ahead,
multiple lanes merging into one,
 
other vehicles escaping via numerous exits,
shooting off somewhere toward greener pastures
 
so that I end up alone on a narrow one-lane
strip of asphalt, overgrown and broken,
 
twisting through hill country and deep woods,
no road signs or mileposts.  I know not
 
what’s ahead or if I am on the right road
but it no longer matters. 
 
It’s my route, my journey,
my destination and now I know
 
I do not travel it by chance
and I do not travel it alone.
 
O child, if God is with you,
the journey and goal are secondary.

Castle in the air

Castle in the air                                                                                        

I’ve built a castle in the air, 

rooted precariously in the clouds.

I move through it daily inspecting

inconsistencies, shifts in solidarity

and alignment – yet also marveling each step

at its impracticable beauty and intricate improbability.

It began with a frail hope, then a desperate faith.

Now a feckless audacity keeps me

roaming its uncharted wings,

knowing what an absurd indulgence

my efforts are considered

by almost everyone stuck in the mire below.

Riding the clouds, built upon the wind,

having perhaps not a whit of substance

but, o I have found nothing

on terra firma to outweigh its promise,

its solace and my holy obsession

with its lofty, ethereal beauty.

O child of God, to reside within the mystery,

rise above everything on earth taken to be true.

A child of Meher

A child of Meher   

I heard of a man named Mercy,

those drawn to Him known as lovers

and ever since that long ago day,

in spite of my distrust, I have inwardly        

longed to be wholeheartedly

one of those sisters and brothers.

But how might a man of so little love,

so little mercy align himself honestly

with the lovers of the Lord of Love;

the Father of Mercy?  I have remained a beggar

outside the gates; listened to their songs of love,

even composed a few myself of praise and complaint,

expressing my allegiance, my hope for love,

my gratitude for the still-open invitation;

marveling at the path I have taken

since I first heard the mercy of His name.

O child of God, however stubborn your fears,

you could never deny – you are a child of Meher.

(drawing by Rich Panico)

The real mystery

The real mystery

You went on a trip around the world and arrived back

having never crossed your front porch.

Viewed your whole journey

through your living room windows;

between the same faded curtains;

behind the same smudged glass.

You arrived back at the beginning, immaculately self-preserved;

while your true adventure remains unexplored.

O child of God, pace the worn-out carpet of your own abode.

That's where the real mystery lies. 

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.

That nonexistent shore

That nonexistent shore                                                                              

My little soul is not a mere drop in the bucket

but according to Meher a drop in an ocean

without a shore, without sky above nor floor below.

An ocean if there is only ocean.

And my soul is not on a journey –

no space to move through,

nowhere to go and no time to get there.

I have no fellow beings, no boundaries,

no autonomy, no existence.

And yet here I am – every day just as if

there were days and nights, lives and deaths,

flesh and bone, five senses, mind and knowledge.

Here I am, o Lord, calling to You

as if You had ears and I had a throat and tongue.

O child of God, let your mind twist and swirl

until it’s dashed upon the stones of that nonexistent shore.

Famous blue overcoat

Famous blue overcoat                                                                                      

O if I could shed my cleverness like an old coat!

Leave it in the seat of a city bus, say,

groaning on without me

or stuff it in a local thrift store bin.

Where it started out as occasional apparel

donned for style, secrecy, protection,

over time it became an essential part of me,

holding everything together.

It became how I daily get through life.

And now that I want to come clean;

strip down to simple naked faith,

now that I yearn to fall apart,

stubbornly, heavily it clings

(and I to it) concealing the real me

as I wrestle and suffocate

under its weight and cover.

O child of God, Meher is leading you by the hand.

Take solace in the truth of your plight.

This dewy morning

This dewy morning                                                                                

A green trail left in the morning dew 

where I have walked to the newly turned garden.

No point in asking where the dew

will be later on in the day

nor where it was the crisp cold evening last.

That’s all being taken care of by someone else.

I bend to work the hoe in dew-drenched hands,

till the dewy soil, strike with the blade

the occasional dew-like, hidden pebbles.

I anticipate a succulent harvest a few months hence,

fitting myself as best I might into this small patch

of the universal scheme, accepting whatever the price

and stipulations of its brief sustenance and bounty.

Everything else is being taken care of by someone else.

O child of God, surrender is a quiet thing,

begun every sunrise in humble, laboring silence.

Unencumbered of woe

Unencumbered of woe                                                                                   

Holding Meher Baba’s umbrella,

my long legs, tall frame keep pace

as He strides the rough terrain 

of early Meherabad. 

We halt in the middle of a field

and after a long silence He turns,

gestures for me to step nearer,

out of the harsh sun into the circle of shade.

I obey and leave beyond its rim myself,

my quest and all such fearsome bindings;

leave behind the rest of the world. 

No need for anything else

save His Presence, this shelter

beyond attainment, beyond understanding.

O child of God, to trust Meher

is to become unencumbered of woe.

The perfect me

The perfect me                                                                                  
 
Forgive me, humanity, I have not been
the human being – the father, son, brother,
 
husband, partner, friend – I had hoped to be.
Nowhere near, not within a country mile.
 
What I am and have been –
to complete perfection – is the perfect me.
 
No one could ever come close
to being as perfect a me as me.
 
Soon enough I’ll meet the perfect death,
this version of self ceasing forever to exist
 
and move on to what is next.
I will dutifully ask forgiveness from God
 
and then thank Him for sharing with me
the opportunity to serve, 
 
(fitting so aptly into His plan)
by expressing precisely all He wished
 
to be expressed, attaining all that
was required by my particular incarnation.
 
O child of God, don’t worry.  Be happy.
Perfection is in the eye of the Beholder.

The turn of a knob

The turn of a knob                                                                                      
 
I hold my tongue (as You suggested
through a lifetime of silence)
 
and meet You in that immeasurable space
where real things are exchanged.
 
Even in these raw, preliminary stages,
I’m allowed through that door
 
where at the turn of a knob
I’m greeted by Your silence.
 
There to listen instead of barter,
quiescent rather than seeking,
 
immobile instead of on the prowl,
humble instead of scheming –
 
o Lord, I am the silence I listen to.
You are the silence I listen to.
 
We mingle there as one –
as I mutely place my hand in Yours.
 
O child of God, continue with your raucous verses.
Meher’s silence contains all sound.

Ocean shell

Ocean shell                                                                                        
 
Cup this shell to your ear
and listen to the ocean –
 
its hollow, hushed white noise
somewhere between a silence and a roar.
 
Shell to ear, ear to heart,
this is the silence Baba left
 
(with its intimate roar)
to drown out the world’s bellow,
 
its furor and anguish, 
sham and shallow glamour;
 
the mind’s incessant stream of self.
Cup this ocean shell to your ear
 
and leave the populous shore
for the solitude and intangible promise
 
of the deep high seas, farther out, farther out
towards oblivion and soundless nonexistence.
 
O child of God, ride the ocean waves
until you lose your boundaries in its briny vastness.

Under their trilling

Under their trilling                                                                             
 
The path of knowledge has petered out
into a thick pine wood ripe with scent and birdsong.  
 
Its remainder does not lie undiscovered up ahead.
It simply goes no farther.
 
There’s no key to God’s door
on my considerable chain –
 
a weight I’ve accumulated for years.
There’s no lock on God’s door;
 
most likely there’s no door at all out this far. 
What I should do now is toss these keys,
 
scatter the last of my bread crumbs 
for the gathered, guileless birds
 
and await my Beloved under their trilling –
hand outstretched but no longer for begging,
 
merely waiting, do or die, for Him
to take my hand and lead me home.
 
O child of God, leave it – your salvation
has always been entirely up to Him.

(Drawing by Rich Panico)