The solace of eternity

The solace of eternity                                                                                       
 
This body is being consumed by age
but I’m left untouched –
 
my Beloved is introducing me to eternity.
A lifespan is comparable to the wink of an eye –
 
in brevity and gravity –
having something to do
 
with sand grains and the spin of planets,
the span of stars, crumbling atoms, eroding flesh.
 
I remain untouched.  Any urgency is presently
soothed and replaced by patience and trust.
 
Eternity has allowed me a certain serenity,
the faith and assurance that I will,
 
over (illusory) time, inevitably shed my loneliness,
reach God and even learn what love is all about.
 
O child of God, you have all the time
in the world, in existence, in eternity.

 

A brief, shared shelter

A brief, shared shelter                                                                                      
 
There is a brief, shared shelter available here on earth,
as much as I can gather it around me,
 
a foretaste, a settling down where nothing
pricks or prods, clings or entices, where nothing
 
derails, undermines, crushes or disturbs.
To enter this realm is to let go of the world,
 
to let go of myself and hold to You;
pretend, until I learn, I am not at all the shadows
 
I’ve been taught I am but the eternal,
infinite, holy essence of non-duality.
 
O child of God, the less of you,
the more room for peace and acquiescence.

A host of angels

 A host of angels                                                                         
 
Billions of souls afloat in the cosmos
and I’m on my way home.
 
Like the brother in the field,
I dropped my scythe where I stood.
 
There’s another harvest I must attend –
where I’ll be cut off at the knees.
 
My horse has gotten a whiff of the barn.
Nothing can keep me now from my Beloved’s gate.
 
My name in His throat, the name He gave me,
ages ago, when I was first sent out --
 
a host of angels over my shoulder
and the highway rising up to greet me.
 
Billions of laboring souls lost in the maze,
          tossing in feverish sleep
and my Beloved has come to awaken me;
 
billions of souls drunken from rage, lust and hate
and my Beloved offering His sobering wine.
 
O child of God, look beyond this ephemeral existence
into the ageless face of your Beloved. 

                                         (from A Jewel in the Dust, 2011)

A new life

A new life                                                                                                       
 
Dear to me, this tumbledown shack,
for its companionship, comfort and shelter.
 
Inexorably it is eroding away.
Abandon it now, my Lord is urging.
 
Wish to be concealed no longer.
Forsake whoever in the world I am.
 
Leave my loved ones, my companions
(as soon I must), shut tightly the door
 
and make this last little stretch
of open road my homestead,
 
following the One Who has come to free me
from the need of every comfort and shelter,
 
to join Him among the elements and the essentials,
in a new life under the open skies.
 
O child of God, the new life can only be lived
when there is no one left to live it.