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.
I look into your eyes
And find my joy brimming,
For I could fall inside
The clarity of your seeing
And swim free
In nothing,
Buoyant in the being we share.
You told me of a Tuscan life
Picking olives,
A world where obstacles
Had dissolved
And all that evolved
Was the beautifully self
Looking at the same time
Both inward and out.
I tasted the olive of happiness
And lived your life
As my life
Dwelling in kinship
With you,
Where you were nothing but myself
Looking kindly from another perspective.
Last night
Brought a frost,
A coating of crystalline white
Drying the air, stiffening every leaf,
Crisping every damp thing,
Stilling all life
But for the sparrows.
Into this
Plooms my breath,
Brought momentarily
From the invisible;
I feel wonder at the breadth
And reach
Of the ether if my being.
I select a log,
Choosing one with flawless grain,
Straight lines, unknotted,
Placing it upright.
I lift the axe, aim
Half heft and half let it fall.
If it is true
My kindling spilts with a snap
Akin to the most beautiful synchronicity,
The grain parting
As if only a thought’s worth
Cleaved it separate
And clean.
I cut more,
And while I swing my axe
And watch my basket fill
With rough cut pieces,
I listen to the sparrows
And the stillness,
Enjoying my breath
Realising wintery all about me.
The moment is fresh
As dew-lubricated leaves
New from the womb of the world.
Oh, this sweet, empty moment,
Virgin as the first born thing,
How can I describe your unresistance
With but the clumsy word?
For you are nothing:
An endless, friendly nothing
Holding me in your arms,
Tender as the loving heart
Welcoming all that is.
You, who is no you,
You, who is everything
Seen and unseen,
Everything unformed or dwelling unchanging
In that which is not yet made.
–
The moment is fresh
And alive with infinite spirit,
And while the dogged mists and moods
Of false thoughts,
So seemingly bonded and glued,
Drift upon me from time to time,
Obscuring your brilliance,
They too, are born in you,
They too, arise in the light
Of awareness’s presence,
Taking their life
From the very light that you are.
Leaves drawn of their vigour
Yellow in the chill light
And flutter down
With each stroke of the breeze.
–
Dying is a beautiful thing
When life’s sap is safe,
Eternal
In the trunk and the root,
–
Withdrawn from the world
Like an in-breath
Or tide, or season’s
Planetary oscillation.
–
Who grieves the leaf
Its turning or its loosening
On the branch,
Or its earthward mulch
–
Settling into new form?
No one grieves,
For the life in the leaf
Is not gone
–
But hides behind bark,
Gathers against the darkness
Of the shrinking wintery days,
And awaits the pull of the sun
–
And the soil’s warming
And the osmotic urge
To express itself again,
And again, and yet again.
You are the sun
Lighting the whole universe.
Through your eyes
And in your seeing
Is the illumination of it all.
You stand at its centre
Looking out:
The very self you seek.
Immersed in the landscape
Or fixated on an object,
This artist does not paint
What his eyes see,
Rather, he absorbs the sight,
Places it
In the cauldron of his being
Where life seeps
As the language of the soul.
It is this he paints,
This aliveness
Mirroring landscape or thing:
His spirit
And God’s spirit
Dancing as one
Infinite being,
And reaching out
To his poised fingers,
To transform the inanimate
And deliver magic on the canvas,
Every stroke of his brush imbued
With the inward spirit he feels.
In love
All things dissolve,
Coming to rest
In the primary nature
Of being.
–
All that is apparent:
The forms in the world
Are melted
In love’s crucible,
Love’s home-bound heart.
–
There is nothing insoluble,
No behaviour
Or state of mind
That can stand
The yolk of the sun.
–
Love is indomitable
Yet gentle as warmth
Passed from father to son.
It encompasses all,
Leaves nothing
–
But tenderness, acceptance
And a wealth of connectedness.
It is the foundation we share,
All of us equally beneficent
And wholly unified.
On the first crisp autumn day
Dazzling light from the low sun
Guilds the forest,
Burnishing every leaf.
In hollows
There is the shadow of frost,
Grasses jacketed stiff,
But in the open
The sky is clean
And the distant rolling hills
Seem magnified.
After coffee sipped
With the sun’s hand on my back,
I amble through the farm shop
Selecting delicious items,
And while paying for my goods
A conversation spontaneously happens.
Like two old friends
Exchanging intimacies,
The shop assistant speaks
And I listen.
We share our truth
And as I look into their eyes
I see wisdom
Deep in their seeing,
As if the autumn light
Came from understanding
As much as from the sun outside,
And I am warmed
And touched by the moment
And brought wholly into the now,
An openness without resistance.
In the floor to ceiling window
Opens the picture:
The river
Glassy with the sky,
Smudged with autumn morning,
A pale blue glaze
In which mists cling
And spiral,
Calling back
The chill night
That stilled the dew drops
To a crust
And freed the tattered leaves
To mulch beneath the trees,
Sending out
A sweet and heady breath
Of spores
As life withdraws,
Releasing jealousies,
Indifferent now
To the russet matter
Discarded.
distilledvoice 