Here in the glistening, twittering light
Of a dewdrop and bird-call morn,
I think back to our meeting
And find I have not left you
Nor feel one increment apart
From the all I found
Inside my heart
And the camaraderie
Of friendship
Couched in being.
Poems
Poems
A Wish For Freedom
To the outside world
Goes the greedy hand
Backed by the greedy mind,
Collecting
Always collecting,
As if
All the stuff of ideas
Would make a person bold
And impervious to time.
–
But how heavy it is,
How imprisoning
This reputation we call ourselves,
How enslaving
To be caged
When the deeper self
Is infinitely free.
–
A thought occurs:
To release the clothes
I thought myself,
To lie back and relax
In nakedness,
For I am not a thing in this world
But that which knows
All myriad happenings.
–
This is my wish for freedom:
A wish that settles like sediment
A wish that diminishes to peace
A wish that quietens to nothing,
Ebbs to wishlessness
And dies like a sunset.
Fresh Air
I breathe the life
In fresh air,
Close my eyes
And feel the space inside
As I feel the space without.
–
I smile at nothing
Feeling vibrant space,
Feeling being
Feeling the nothing of my self,
And tasting sweetness.
–
Who am I in this
With every idea cast
And separate from my being?
Who am I
In this?
–
I am space
And fresh air
And sweetness.
I am nothing
But being’s spaciousness.
A Loving Moment
For a moment,
I am in love
With the world
Dancing before eyes,
The whole and beautiful spectrum.
My heart
Has broken the bounds of my body
Escaped the cage of my chest
And gone free
In the sphere
In the space
In the being.
Oh, how there is warmth in this,
Warmth in it all,
Myself mellow in my finger tips
As it it is mellow in the trees
And distant fields.
How broad is gratitude?
Broader than the flawless sky,
And deeper than seeing,
The yolk of my heart tumbling out
Until there is nothing untouched,
Nothing unglazed by light,
Nothing that isn’t dripping
With love,
As if form
Were some bizarre
And delicious flower,
Pungent and exuberantly expressing
Such divine fecundity.
A Bright New Day
Chittering wrens
Pick from the larder of cones
Clutched in the pine-brush
And absorb the awakening light.
Beneath, I sit and ponder
On the nature of being.
Some would speak of mankind
Separate from reality,
Somehow living above it all.
Yet, I am moved
Upon the turning of the world
In season’s gentle shift
Of early beginnings
And day pushed into night.
Surely this body,
As all walking free,
Feels the thrust of life
In the burst of the bud,
Unopened but profoundly expectant.
Surely all are moved
By the first warm breeze
Tickling the pine needles above.
Who is really alone
When life thrums
Through the body’s instrument,
When the very moon
Sways the water of our moods
And the constitution of our minds,
And new light shines,
Drawing us out
To sit absorbing
Like the first insect
Roused from hibernation’s
Torpid sleep?
Morning Stillness
Stillness settled with the night
And did not leave,
And now a windless, blue sky
Brims with spaciousness.
Birds, twittering in the skeletal trees
Dissect the quiet, but not the stillness,
Their tongue’s music
Is the sharp edge
Of reality.
I lean against a wall
Bathed in fresh light.
Things happen in the stillness:
A car passes,
A faraway motorbike on a faraway road,
Blunter than the birds,
A squeal of a refuse truck, ever hungry.
But the stillness remains,
Deeper and more broad
Than the mind can conceive,
Deeper and more broad,
And deeper still.
The tree, standing elegantly tall
Knows the stillness intimately.
It stands beside me, thrumming
With a soundless resonance.
In the patch of sunlight
I lean against the wall,
Listening to the birds,
Knowing that stillness.
Sharing Love
At first
There is an arm around your shoulder
As you realise
Your mind has spiralled in fear,
But then love
Hugs to your being
As if you were lifted,
Buoyed upon the heart’s
Opening up.
And now in the eyes
And in the body
Warmth flows,
And to look upon the world
Is to look in love,
For love loves
To all else’s detriment.
And even to look upon fear
With love is to understand:
It’s to offer a hand
To what seemed unloveable
And know it inert,
Know it powerless,
Know it wholly loved,
For fear is but a thought
Held shadowy,
Fear is the mind shunning
It’s greater nature,
Fear is the heartless mind
Mired in calculation,
Holding out
Yet awaiting its moment;
The inevitable cascade of love,
The overwhelming truth of God,
The totality asserting itself
Over separateness
And the illusion
That love is not the all of it.
Sometimes The Storm
Sometimes the storm
Is turbulent
But when the gusts calm,
When the fearful thoughts
Settle down,
The love we find is serene,
Bright-eyed and beautiful.
All that was tumultuous
And all that raged
Was but a movement
In love’s dream,
A squall playing on the surface,
A temporary disturbance
On the facade of our lives,
Fleeting and momentary
But unable to touch the depth of us.
Truth
These days the truth seems elusive:
The certainties we took for granted
Are dissolving into a mix of twisted
And frightening realities.
Who to trust now
When all around are pushing
Agendas and fake news?
–
Trust in the inner truth of self
For there is a wellspring of energy
Beyond the realms of ‘not enough’.
Always and ever present
The heart’s voice speaks
In fearlessness:
The now in which we live
Is safe,
A flow of abundance
And ever-giving wealth.
–
Know this as being
Know this being as yourself,
For in being
The noise of fractious multitudes
Quietens and ebbs,
Even their voices
Are imbued with love.
–
The truth is never elusive
When we dissolve
And trust in trust,
–
The truth is always,
Always in love.
What Does Love Say
What does love say
To the mind’s swirling creations,
To its entrenched angst
And to all that ails
And seems intractable?
Love says nothing,
But like a tide of warm indulgence,
Love flows as the body of the boundless self,
Flows unstoppable to bitter ills
Dissolving all but itself
And freeing that self
From the illusions
That seem to bind it.
distilledvoice 