A tender
child
The great fear of death was once for me
the end of self.
Now it’s the resurrection,
again and again, from the fields of stone
towards a conscription into battle
where the enemy is always myself.
Another
lifetime beginning from scratch,
far from
heaven, a tender child to face anew
the test of
mettle, the suffering of desires
(met or
unmet), to don yet another false suit
of
congeniality and compliance while living
covertly
under the compulsion of human
ignorance,
isolation, cowardice and sin.
O child of
God, the deeper your renunciation,
the nearer
you are to His open arms.
The eternity within
I might have become bitter with age
but my Lord fills me with such sweet wine!
From the inside out, He serves me
(as the world offers its standard gristle and
gall),
the generous terms of a surrender which seems
surprisingly, more and more, an intensely shared
bond of triumph and liberation.
When the divine Companion whispers to you
it makes no difference what is said,
whether you make out the words or not;
it matters not what He asks of you nor whether
you are prepared to obey – it is the hearing
of a lifetime deaf-and-unfeeling heart,
the slow turning of yourself around
to see God coming – not from anywhere above
or beyond, but from the eternity within.
O child of God, again and again His words
strike home – we are not we but One.
(drawing by Rich Panico)
This lucidity
Comes a point where you see yourself
much as God sees you,
as others feel you, roughly
rubbing up against them;
how your ego has played you for a fool
all your days, how blind you have been
(in over your head) to your own faults
and ruinous behavior and it doesn’t end there,
this lucidity – it comes and goes,
as you awaken and nod off again,
in this lifelong, ages-old habit and dream of
self.
Praising your Lord for His revelations and solace,
bearing the shame of your insufficiency,
getting on with your life solely for His sake,
more aware each day of the difficulty of liberation
and how utterly undeserving of it you are.
O child of God, everyone, said Meher,
(including you), is destined for the supreme goal.
(drawing by Rich Panico)
My heart
My heart is a dust-laden bell,
long time silent, ensconced in a tower
of a snowed-in chapel at the woods’ edge,
ashes cold in the hearth,
no footprints leading to or from.
My heart is an unused muscle
aching at the least exertion and stretch –
tender, quaking, ineffectual.
My heart is keen for the spring breeze
this winter to break its immobile silence.
God is nearing my house and I want that bell
to swing, shine and sing at His arrival;
a roar in the hearth; my limber, compliant heart
stretched out in the warmth like a doormat at His
feet.
O child of God, it’s a painful journey
from head to heart, from fear to love.
