The merest shadow
Before I met You I was a
devout believer,
clinging to a hundred
stolen truths.
Now I find I am slowly
losing my religion.
When it’s gone, when my
pockets are empty,
I’ll float above this
world like an angel.
One day there will be
nothing left of me,
not the vaguest hint of a
semblance
of the merest shadow of a
dream.
I removed my sandals, but
my bare feet
stain the surface of Your
pure stone floor.
This flesh and blood,
unholy container
taints the atmosphere of
Your immaculate shrine.
O Lord, what is at the
heart of me
that You tolerate such
intolerable insults
and move ever closer,
become ever
more intimate and
involved?
O child of God, if you
are made of clay, how will you
ever be scrubbed clean?
Your Beloved is drawn to
the inviolate Source
of who you really are.
Your damaan
O Friend, whatever it
takes, I am holding on to You.
Through rough treatment,
barren patches,
through episodes of
almost unendurable intimacy,
I am holding on to You.
You broke open this heart
of mine
and with Your lovely
hands planted a seed.
I feel it now taking root
in my chest.
One day it will pin me to
the earth
and a huge, sheltering
tree will grow.
Then, I might be worth
something.
It’s cracking me open
now,
letting in joy and pain
and a great love.
I have the hem of that love
in my hands.
I can only imagine the
height and breadth of it
in the dark.
My whole world has become
this grip on Your damaan
and my accustoming myself
to the rhythm of Your long, holy strides.
O child of God, don’t get
lost. Hold on
tightly and mightily to
your Beloved.
A yellow wood
In a yellow wood, came I to a divergence –
the road I take the next leg of my journey,
the other a phantom companion.
O Lord, let it be true that the freedom
and certainty of karma and fate rule the road
rather than my fear and ignorance
determining where I shall end up,
the life I shall encounter along the way.
Praying to God I might set down at last
the staggering baggage of my presumed autonomy
on every more or less traveled road
taken or not taken and accept the long term
remedial grace and benevolence
of a hand-held, divinely-guided tour.
O child of God, you plot your itinerary
knowing not how you have arrived at where you are.
Before the angels
A church bell at the end of my rope
might better suit. I could tug it
instead of spouting words and we could both
listen to the tolls and the tolls fading.
The world at my windows is growing fainter, too,
little by little not quite there, having run out
of hocus pocus, steam and bluster which is all it ever was.
The same faded repertoire to keep me at the knotted end;
coax me back from the cliff-edge darkness
into heavy traffic or inside the whispers and sighs
of so many naive and incoherent promises.
I have a darkness waiting for me and a depth
(I feel it), a light in the midst and so I repair, repair
with my Beloved into solitude and companionship,
mystery and resolution as the world in its wrong-headed way
keeps showing me how so very little I truly have to lose.
O child of God, lose yourself as best you might
before the angels come to cart you away.
