Unwritten rules

Unwritten rules

They keep scrupulously,
cupped hands, upturned faces,

the unspoken, written-down rules
of the One who came

not to teach but to awaken,
while the unwritten rules

slip into one ear and out the other;
their hearts like fire through a cheap hotel

or myrrh through a thurible;
they sift the gathered evidence

ashes in hands
while leaving undetected

the living voice that nudges
gently the lover; either practice

dangerous in the extreme
but with an intimacy in the latter,

an inwardness beyond the rattling bars,
in the long-sought-after Constant Companion.

O child of God, His voice is the deep one
your heart has been ever aching to hear.

The sole discordance

The sole discordance                                                                                      
 
God is everything I am not.  Apparently.
Everything but little ol’ me,
 
the bubble over the Ocean drop.
Everything not the self made of Self,
 
asserting its appropriateness
by its very existence.  Up against that
 
ubiquitous voice I have no say
for anything in the world
 
I wish not to be the way it is
or to resolve and go away
 
or to not exist at all;  I have no say
because what is not me
 
speaks with the premeditated,
authentic, primeval voice of God.
 
O child of God, you are the sole
discordance in a chorus of Oneness.

Every paramount moment

Every paramount moment                                                                       

You know what the mystics say – don’t look forward

to anything but who can live hopelessly as that?

Who owns a bible where the list of begats

are as dear as the shalls listed in the beatitudes?

Plowing the fields equal to crucifixion and resurrection?

Every motion and emotion, thought and word

holy, essential, singular, irrevocable and worthless.

I mean, priceless, matchless, every paramount moment

and the appreciation of it

the mystics tell us, is loving God.

O child, you must encounter

your Father through the heart.