I sip the sweet elixir of possibility,
Taste the unbound
And find there
Nothing but the self unshackled.
What can we be
When we step from the tight
Groove of routine,
The preprogrammed and forethought track.
I do not conceive the answer
But sense that which is not yet born,
That free form,
Unfettered and dreamy.
I drink of this possibility
Becoming drunk on love,
Bathing in the fluid of possibility alone;
A not knowing
As broad as a river,
Deepening and widening
And carrying me happily along.
I sit quiet
On a stone structure
Jutting out above the pool.
In the foreground
Wading birds traverse
The lily pond,
Taking leafy, buoyant step
After leafy, buoyant step,
Picking between the protruding buds,
Ever called sunward.
On the far bank,
Peacocks own the roof of the cattle shed.
They strut, then stop,
Heads upturned and necks quivering
And release a warble of throaty calls.
When the moment is right
They extend their plumage,
Turn a full circle on the spot,
Shaking sporadically
As if to summon the gaze of the whole world,
Draw feminine kind to the chalice
Of one hundred iridescent and fine seeing eyes.
–
Beyond the groves of coconuts
And when the mountains rise,
A dense forests climbs steeply
All the way to the clouds,
Disappearing in the mist-shrouded peaks
To collect the silver life of dew drops
From those airy passers by.
And on return
The forest conveys first dampness,
Then sheds trickles and rivulets,
Then further down at the foot of the hills
Streams spill out on to the flat plain
To quench the thirsty farmland,
Where all life bends
Upon their knees
To sip
From cupped and thankful hands.
Through the portal of the word
I remember love,
Step inside its resonance.
Truly it is unforgettable,
Yet what the mind says
In absence
Seems to veil
The unveilable,
Distract
From its absolute being.
–
I remember the love
That loves without question,
The love that simply loves,
Dissolves all in its recognition,
Ever brings forth
More of itself
In joyful abandon.
–
I remember love
That isn’t a memory
Or static thing
Locked in the vaults of my mind,
But instead
Vibrates with the essence of living,
The all of my heart.
–
I remember the place, shape
And flavour of love,
The being of love,
Always being
Always loving,
On which all find foundation.
–
I remember love,
That love
Closer to my heart
Than anything,
The love that does not stand apart
But enfolds
Simply everything.
From the ocean’s far horizons
And through the haze
Of a lazy afternoon,
A breeze,
Sure in temperament,
Comes to presence
In the buffeted leaves
Of a salt-hardy species,
Rooted in sand.
–
My hair rustles
Like the broad-leafed trees
Of the tropics,
And my skin
Feels every pulse of the wind,
Every sun-warmed vibration.
–
The afternoon
Settles in the glimmering sea
And waves roll ever beachward,
Rising up
And falling,
Curled and called under
And then sluced forward
In the tide’s fluid sinking away.
–
I am yet again touched by constance:
The air, like reality,
Dynamic in flow,
The great liquid medium
Offering a soft percussion,
The leaves gently scratching
Their waxy neighbours,
Even the crows irregular calls
And eagles’ warbling cries
Speak of this singular theme
Of stillness in movement,
A happening in the heart of things,
A now containing all that could be.
–
What am I in this
Air-caressed and skin-warmed perception?
What is it that hears the sea
Cool upon the sand?
Who’s heart,
A sponge to the whole,
Drinks in the indulgence of the senses?
–
I have no answers
But for the slithers of light
Dazzling on the turbulence
Of the world’s
Blue-green globe,
Reaching beyond my understanding,
No answer
But for the soaring eagles
Expertly high on thermal wing,
No answer
But for the sway of branches,
Supple and bending
To and fro,
Chlorophyll fronds
Like my fingertips,
Feeling it,
Alive and inside
The whole
Of God’s own synthesis.
I do not really comprehend
What mysteries unfolded
In the heart of this place,
But what I can discern
Is that I am moved
In ways beyond my understanding,
My body and my mind
Touched by the work of love.
I feel it in the antenna of myself
And in the knowing
Where love meets love,
And in the opening to the greater union.
Some may let this seeing slide
And go unacknowledged,
But my heart swells
To say this truth out loud
And bow to the profundity
Come upon me.
I stand grateful before you
And thankful for the alignment of the stars,
Your lineage
And your guru’s touch
That saw you born as I am born
To the wonder of it all,
The blessed fall into the ground of being.
With eyes closed
And the subtle reach of my fingertips
I sense the quivering air
Alive with energy.
I hover there
In the organ of my heart
Tasting the unseen frequency,
Intimately knowing
My brother the dragonfly
Aloft those same ethereal strands
And darting above the pool.
The pure white egret
Still on the strand,
Eying the bubbling surge
For silver
Is no less my brethren,
Nor the prey fish
Cool in the brine
And quick in the throng,
Nor too the ants scurrying indusrious.
I could make a fine list of kind:
Beast, vegetative form
And stone
And all would be kin to me,
Sensing alike
The charge-thrilling space
In vibration invisible,
A force to which we are all yoked,
Bodily bound,
Energetically impelled.
Sitting in a cafe on a cliff
Overlooking the Arabian Sea,
Waves arrive,
Barrel and arrive again,
And an offshore wind strums
The palm fronds,
While a hippie flutters
Through guitar strings
Singing his spontaneity.
–
A fat, sleeping dog
Dreams of freedom
Beneath the table,
Limbs spasming,
Little yelps and joyful snorts
Heralding a youthful memory.
–
My love
Sits beside me
Lost in a book
And the hippie’s sweet voice
Just as I am lost
In the words of this Malabar place
That seem to come
As much from the palms’ rustling
And the waves breaking
As the instrument plucked
And the bitter coffee
Aromatic on my tongue.
Dearest friend
I could sit in the silence of our being
And dwell satisfied
In the knowledge
That we are joined in the heart of our life,
For our friendship
Is not based on superfluous traits
But deep seated
And deep rooted
And deep found
In the beginnings of our self
Where we are one:
One, to the exclusion of other,
One, to the exclusion of else,
Simply and only one,
Where friendship is shared
And where all that seemed separate
Is found to be joined
And all that seemed divided
Is unified and whole.
When the universe speaks
There is a flow of happiness
For in its voice is wisdom
Saying: please join the great river of joy
Ever flowing outward,
Like mildest breath of fresh air
Come to lighten us.
In this, all mens’ hearts are one,
All womens’ hearts are one,
All hearts inconceivably connected.
And even the fractious mind
Busy conceptualising everything separate
Is not shunned or shamed,
But invited.
And even this is untruth
For busy mind is but love conscripted,
Love’s energy veiled.
For what could exist
Outside everything?
Who in God is beyond
The infinite?
Where is this outside,
This place cut off
And separated from the wholeness?
What wholeness could wholeness be
If there was another in the realm?
And where else would we look for wholeness,
But in wholeness,
There being nothing but
Its infinity in which to be?
When the mind quietens
The sun shines
Internally radiant,
Offering love
In the entirety of its being.
–
As I am shining
I am bathing
In the warmth
That irrigates the body/mind.
–
Could it really be
That such a (no)thing
Could go unnoticed,
This most apparent (no)thing
Somehow overlooked?
–
And so eclipsed,
The universe of being
Seems cold and absent,
The self crystallised in ideas
And apparently imprisoned.
–
Rigid in the un-rigid,
We call incarceration ourself
And suffer the consequences of belief,
Pained because we cling,
Hurting because we identify with stiffness
In all that is only fluid.
–
But when the mind quietens
The sun shines
Internally radiant,
Offering love
In such abundance.
–
And as I am shining,
Bathing in the warmth
That irrigates the body/mind,
I see that irrespective of the mind’s condition,
Love shines
In the entirety of being.
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