Straw boss

Straw boss                                                                                                         

As a spiritual pilgrim, I must go (I am told)

from being an egocentric being

to a being without a center;

dust adrift in a cosmic wind,

settling eventually on Love Street

at the feet of my Lord. 

I might have been a straw boss once.

Now I’m being pummeled into dust,

this sack of flesh containing the lot

of my accumulated wisdom. 

Any glint among the grains a mere trick of light.

Apparently, I have only just come under the hammer

and it’s a long, long journey

from here to nowhere.

O child of God, what matters the length

of a trek you have no choice but to undertake?

Bold experiments

Bold experiments                                                                                    

I have read the gestures, the finger-tracings;

heeded the later, lived-in mandali stories

so as not to be led astray nor gamble

upon imaginings, vagaries, the ruses of ego.

  

Gone by the book and the left-behind road map. 

But when the Friend appears before me

whispering of alternative avenues

tailored to my peculiar journey, an unheralded route

sewn into the soft fabric of my heart

I am made averse to safe-playing;

willing to risk my likely being led astray

to obey words that have touched

neither lips nor page, words never meant

to be taught nor shared, never to reach

the light of reputable wisdom or discernment,

words that appear from nowhere

to rapidly fade into the mystery

from whence they came.

O child of God, Meher advised his lovers

to take risks and make bold experiments.

Heed Hafiz

Heed Hafiz                                                                                               

My dear, the fault lies in your own

incapacity to understand him. – Hafiz

No, never wrong is the Master,

until His truth touches my ears

too unwieldy and unfathomable

for language and meaning to bear.

So I cautiously heed Hafiz, 

my faith and allegiance

pledged to the silent Godman

but only tentatively and tangentially

to His words of which I have

no true capacity or authority to comprehend. 

O child of God, by what possible measure can you

presume to know what God is talking about?

Only the breath

Only the breath                                                                                       

A creature molded of river clay,

how can it not stain everything it touches?

Leave its separative, alien markings

everywhere it goes?

Made of clay.  Not just layered in it.

To the core and out the other side.

How could that creature ever flow?

Rise above?  Become transparent?

How might the light ever shine through?

Whatever benign shape it’s molded into,

will it not always be a creature thick, slow,

cumbersome, pliable and impotent?

Only the breath God gave it – only the breath.

Miraculous, invisible, ancient and holy. 

O child of God, God’s living breath –

the only redemption for a creature of clay.