Brother,
Stand unashamed
In the truth
Of your enquiring self.
You are he
Who must ask questions
To quench his thirst.
You cannot fight
Your birthright
Or the way
You are in the world.
Rest in this knowledge
That the path is right,
And your place on it
Is where you must be.
There is a deep truth
In acceptance
Of all
That you are
And all you have taken on.
Only this
Will see you transformed
And untransformed.
How you are
Is the truth
As it stands
In the moment.
There is sweetness here
Even while bitterness
Is tasted.
There is great freedom
To be powerless
Before God
To be as He is
To be as He is.
Uncategorized
Feng Shui
In the house
is
space
and objects
on the shelf
and furniture placed
but
mostly space
as if
each object
was a pointer
to that
which held
it
safe
as if
subtle space
had traded place
with form
to be
the
more important
thing
and that
which calls
attention
to
itself
allowing
all
the stands proud
to find its home.
Before All Else
To share
The sunshine of the heart
Is to find
The sun upon your face
And bliss
In basking
In its beauty.
For around each corner
Is a smiling face
Reflecting joy,
Both playful and loving,
And each new corner
Yields still more of the same
Infinite quality.
Can you imagine
A world
In which the heart
Is worn naked
And transparent
In the body,
And everywhere
There are flowers
Glowing
In adoration of the sun?
Well, this IS the world
In which the heart
Finds its place in plenty
And where the mind
Has settled down.
This IS the world
Into which we are born
Through the tool of the body,
Knowing the grit and dank
Of the soil
And yet also
The ineffable reality
From whence we all come.
How could we not share
This truth
Made of light and love,
Beyond the bounds of space
And time
And all we deem heavy?
How could we not share
This warm and tender truth
Of happiness
God-given to us all
As life
Found effortless
Just like the sun
And the flowers -
And really
All forms under
The light loved down.
How could we not share
The sharing
That brought us to ourselves
And to the boundless
And to the truth
That we are love
First
Love first
Before all else.
Rich Moment
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
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.
The Cow Shed
She goes to the lowing,
Rustling, cud chewing shed
To absorb a bovine energy.
From their eyes she drinks
A liquid stillness, breathes
Their heavy succulent breath
And observes their due drop snouts
Nuzzling and inquisitive.
More than anything
She finds them quite, satisfyingly quiet.
Despite the constant chewing,
Neck rubbing, hoof stomping
And fidgeting on their halters,
They exude
The deep silence of the soul,
A calm watery expression
Of grass transformed
To sweet clover thoughtlessness.
She drinks this in,
Finds resonance,
Matches their quality,
Becomes equally
And sublimely still.
Walk With Me
Walk we me a while;
The night is sweet with honeysuckle
And fragrant shrubs breathing out
Their gifts for nightjars
And moths intent on the moon.
We’ve walked this path
In times past,
Many times;
We are kin
Though perhaps you’ve forgotten.
Never mind,
For arm in arm
We remember our love,
The warmth of our hearts,
The friendship
Of warm human bodies
Strolling side by side.
See, with each step upon this magic
We are closer.
To what? You ask,
Still forgetting.
To the Now perhaps
Or the tangible moment
Filled full with the moon
And dark-eyed moths
Feeding on the celestial beams
And heavenly night-shrubs.
See, up ahead, the Seeker’s gate:
It has a powerful magnetism.
But do you not feel the lushness of the
Creeping vines around us?
Do you not feel the cool
Of night shadows
Seeping between the trees
Holding earthen scents,
Sappy grasses bleeding
Into the cradling gloom?
You wish to go through the gate, I see.
I understand.
Do you wonder at what marvel lies beyond,
What treat you could be
If only we could muster the key
To enter?
No, beautiful friend, no!
Go that way
And find only endless dissatisfaction
In search of the elusive end
That never ever comes,
Always a horizon distant.
No, we are here already
For we walk arm in arm
In moonlight,
Our bare feet touching the cool stones
Of a pathway wending between trees
With waxy leaves,
Fluttering in ever so soft breezes.
See, there is enough in friendship.
Do not seek to open the gate
But look into my eyes instead,
Savour the scent of the moon
And the flavour of a wood
Enshrined in shadows,
Ever calling the nightjar and the moth.
Be here with me
In this savouring
Of the life in which our hearts beat,
A savouring of the space
In which we inhabit,
And the love
That gathers and glows
Between us
In the lush garden of ourselves.
Single Eternal Note
I won’t go into the day save to say it was grim as an overcast sky, hungover and car sick. But now, on a beach polished golden by late afternoon light, two cold beers – my companions, refreshment beading bottle-green glass and glugged so thirstily, the whole of reality is changed, altered.
The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.
The tide is in, lapping gently in the push of cool waters. Oystercatchers shrill low over the glistening brine, every wavelet capturing the blinding sun.
Moored sailboats jostle anonymous, swayed by tide, current and breeze, their lanyards chink, chink, chinking, tolling a finger-tapping rhythm, a morse code of freshness.
The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.
The sun is on my back like a hug from behind. I look up, and the beach is near deserted. My companions are spent and silent, drunk.
The sunbathers have packed up, leaving but a memory’s shape pressed in the sand. Only a lone young woman remains, sitting on the wall, reading. There is a deep silence inside her, a peace made of the ever-flowing wind.
The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.
Behind the woman is the row of trees from which the birds twitter. Their trunk-bodies are sculpted by the air; their faces swept clean; their hair creaking; their needles vibrating with the sound of reality.
I can taste the world, the whole world, brought by the wind and the twittering birds, constant in the fronds of the trees, creaking gently.
The wind moves constant through the pines, and unseen birds twitter: Vibrating needles hum a single eternal note.
I can feel the world, the whole world, called by the wind and the bird’s constant twittering, and the oystercatchers cutting the sunlight from the waves, and the chink, chink chinking of lanyards drumming on aluminium masts.
I know the world, the whole world, found in my broadening heart’s cool waters and the sun’s hug from behind. I know the loving world contained in the constance of silence as the wind moves through the pines and unseen birds twitter; Vibrating needles humming a single eternal note.
You Call My Name
You call my name
With the music of your voice
And now I am falling……
–
Falling into your voice,
–
And……
–
I am….
–
Lost in the falling,
Adrift in beauty’s placeless place;
In love with love…
–
Oh, I am….
–
Speechless ………..and wordless
–
Stripped of my meaning
And brought to my knees
Before God….
–
Oh, I am
–
Silenced
–
Silence
Cool Breeze Beneath The Plane Trees
London is sweet
In June’s ownership.
Roses billow
From front gardens
In to quite, shady streets.
There is a cool breeze
Beneath the plane trees,
And reality flexes
With a deep breath
And a mind expanding.
I read in the paper
That rare orchids had materialised
On a green roof
Among towering edifices –
An astronomical improbable chance!
Someone was quoted saying it was miraculous.
It made me wonder
What other miracles
Are yet in store,
Idling just off stage,
Unseen in the formless realm,
Unexpressed possibility
Awaiting only
A nod of our head
And an invitation to be.
