The Thoughts Of Us

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When the heart swells

And thoughts are glossed in wonder,

Coming to the world

Wet with love

As if they had drunk deep

Upon the source

And imbibed

A draft’s worth

Of that subtle, unformed substance,

It matters not

What these thoughts are

For all are equal

Under love’s law,

All are painted in love’s sheen,

All are born of love’s significance,

And none are higher or lower,

Weighted bigger or smaller,

Nor judged to be greater

Or deemed to be less than any another.

Like us,

They are materialised

And glossed in wonder,

Coming to the world

Wet with love

As if they had drunk deep

Upon the source

And imbibed

A draft’s worth

Of that subtle, unformed substance.

Like us

They come to life

Imbued with light,

To dance

For the fleeting moment

Of their being.

Myself

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Dearest and closest

Most intimate friend,

You are made of nothing

But being.

When I acknowledge you,

When I fall back into you,

I return molten with love

As if you had dissolved

All but the essence of me,

Dissolved all

But that which you are,

Dissolved all

To which I was bound

In mind, body and thought.

And for a moment

And maybe moments after

Or even when moments stretch to hours

And perhaps really

In the truth of timeless always now,

I am free,

Free in being

And free in love,

Free to be myself.

Old Lives

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Sometime the old lives rise

From where they lie,

Undisturbed

But fully functional:

Scripts we once called ourself

And followed unconsciously,

Ideas we believed

But forgot we believed,

Whose presence

Steers us

On courses

Now obsolete and irrelevant,

The machine trundling on

In a groove set

Years ago,

Thoughts we ceased to see

Guiding us

In the robotic program

Of our walking sleep.

Sanctity Beyond Arithmetic

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The past is littered with casualties:

And mind

Will go back

And count the lost,

And perhaps dwell there

As an unhappy accountant

To that which should have been.

–

But love is never lost:

The wise

Cast away the past

With all its woe and misery,

And hold only

To principle love,

The heart warmth

That tells of eternity

Beneath the messy arithmetic,

An inward wealth

To right all wrongs,

Solve hurts

And salve wounds,

A truth that swells

As it is acknowledged,

A truth that wholes

And reveals

That beyond and behind

The persistent ills,

Love holds all

In sanctity pristine

And being,

Ever perfect.

Dial In

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You can dial into love

As simply as smelling a rose,

As simply as taking a breath.

Dial into love

And feel the love that you feel:

It doesn’t matter if it’s for a pet,

A person alive or dead,

It doesn’t matter:

The warmth of love is the same.

Dial in to love:

Love that love:

Love and be loved

And step into the expanding realm

Swelling in your heart’s domain.

Taste the love that loves,

The love you have always been.

Fishing

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The Indian ocean,

In which the setting sun

Falls golden

To the wetted lips

Of waves infinite,

Speaks in white-water rumbles,

And the wind pulses warmly on my skin

And tussles at my hair.

–

These and much else

Call the mind to their sensational happening

And I feel my body in the world,

Sights and sounds

All around me.

–

But what is this me

In which the world appears?

What perceives

The golden mirror to the absolute west,

Laid upon the sea

Like an avenue,

The last light before dusk?

–

If, for a moment

I withdraw from my sun-warmed skin,

The buffeting wind

And my hair rustling like leaves,

What can I say

About being?

–

What can I say about the one

Who perceives these beautiful things,

The one who sees

The fishing boats heading out

To catch the night fish?

–

I try again,

Withdrawing from the worldly things,

Saying aloud “I am”;

Finding its resonance,

That to which the portal refers,

And fall from the sensational skin

And the light fading

And the wind’s playfulness.

–

I fall away into I,

Into dimensionless I,

Into love and well-being

And that which is indescribable,

That which defies the poet

And renders him

To nothing but inescapable warmth.

–

And then I open my eyes

To the perfect globe of the sun,

A ball of orange

Muted by the horizon’s haze,

And find being hauled with me

Like the fishermen’s silver clad nets

That come to the surface so bountiful.

–

Now, being seems wholly in the world,

In everything within earshot and gaze.

The waves are speaking

As if each drop were lubricated,

Each molecule part of the soft fluid whole.

And the wind too is a song

Of whispers gathered by the clouds,

Lovingly caressing

Those who’d be gladly touched.

–

Who is infusing

And who is infused?

It does not matter much

In beingness,

For no one but the One exists,

No one but the One

Is flushed by love,

No one but the One

Is as open as the universe is.

There Is Only Love

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Whatever it be

Love conquers,

Not by show of force

But by soft movement,

Gentle allowing

And acceptance,

The truth unveiled

That there never was a thing apart

From love’s flow unbounded.

For a moment the thing:

Form, thought or emotion

Seems separate and real,

But what are borders

To the whole of God

But traces of nothing

Like ripples rippling

Upon the water’s edge,

Occurring but memoryless,

Fading at the very moment they arise.

Rich Moment

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The sea beeeze is thick

With the moment

As if time

Were the grains of sand

On the beach,

Granular beneath our feet

And somehow transmitting silence.

–

This moment feels pregnant

With the ocean,

Speaking through the surf,

And the traders

Shutting down their stalls,

Heeding the encroaching night.

–

The tea, served in paper cups

Is as warm as the moon,

And tastes as good

As if it wasn’t just the tongue

But the skin and the tide

And wild dogs on the beach

Which tasted it.

–

What exactly is this rich moment

In which the body feels

As if the sea had invaded.

Perhaps it’s the heart

Or the sun

Still invigorating the skin,

Or the mind’s relinquishment.

Perhaps it’s the echo

Of the argument

And truths spoken

That leaves us empty

And tinglingly receptive.

Argument

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What is the waves’ opinion

Of the couple’s fight?

For before, during and after

The sea slid landward

Then slid back,

And white noise rolled

From left to right

Along the long shore drift.

–

And what is the breeze’s opinion

Of the argument,

High in the rustle-top palms

And blowing from the horizon’s depth

Where the sunset,

Kaleidoscopic in the clouds,

Breaks apart in hues of molten orange.

–

And what is the sand’s point of view,

Shifting and flat

With each sluice

And slap of the waves,

The sunset oranging

The mirrory film

Exposed at the ocean’s call back

And salty in-breath.

Stripped

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We are all stripped

Of our accumulations:

The stuff we call ourselves;

Hang ups, difficulties, resistances,

All that dogged memory,

And then we are washed in so many ways

Until the gleam of pure life

Shines in our eyes

And we come to each other,

Humbled and with love in our hearts,

A gleaming energy

Lightening our steps

And eroding further

The weight we thought was ours,

The weight we thought was ourselves,

The weight we carried and called

The inescapable gravity of our lives.