Dearest,
For one moment
Rest
The machine in your head.
Sometimes it seems
So overwhelming, I know -
Those thoughts thinking
Way too fast,
Exploring all sorts
Of dark passageways.
And sometimes
You think those passageways
Are the vesicles
Of your heart,
And at the depth of you
Is a crypt
Where there is something
On which
You should never ever look.
No, no, no,
Hear me now child of love,
This is not your heart
But cobwebs
Made to look
Like fearful things.
Your heart is beside you now
Beautiful child,
She stands with you
In the space of always.
And if there are cobwebs
She loves them.
And if there are fearful things
She holds them in her arms
And loves them too.
Dearest,
Do not believe the world
That says you’re lost
To She
Who loves you always.
Do not believe that world
High on separate thought.
Feel instead
The warmth
That stands beside you always.
Dearest,
You are loved by She
And truly,
It can be
No other way.
beauty
What If
What if
Words became tears
And logic
Became a lozenge
Dissolving on the tongue
And we dispensed
With the dry bones
Of loveless ideas
And gazed instead
Into the eyes
Of someone we love
Finding there
The letters of our name
Disentangled
From their sentence form
And washed down our cheeks
Like pebbles in a stream
Banked
Upon the slow curve
Of the river’s turn.
What was once
In thought
Is disassembled
And then reconfigured
In the writing works
And calligraphies
Of nature’s hand
Upon land and water.
What was once made
From man’s disembodiment
Is remade by God.
Like the world now
Man is
Written as the poem
In flow,
No less beautiful
Than the fine grains
Of graded sand
Made into the shapes
Of rounds
And eclipses
As if the loving moon too
Was caught in that spell
And no less
Intricately connected.
To Find the Truth
I used to think
That to find the truth
I had to mine
The self
For the original sin,
That first crime
Where I walked away
When I should have
Remained,
That first step I took
Outside of myself
Which split me
And delivered
All the subsequent pain.
And perhaps there is truth there
But also
Such a long time
Using the fragmented mind
In an attempt to fix itself,
Yet finding
Only a collage
Of disappointment
And recurring dreams
Of regret.
Now, I do not mine
But sit here relaxed
Without the need
For cause and effect,
Holding loosely
A mild indifference
To symptoms
And that great causal defect
That the mind
Made into
An unwinnable game.
Perhaps there is a partial truth
In searching out that
Primordial shame
Locked in a deep pit
Beyond the scope
Of finding.
But perhaps
The greater truth
Remains
In the full heart
That bears
All that could ever
Come to pass,
All found
In its witnessing.
For the greater truth
Lies in love
In open love
That always looked
Without flinching
In freeing love
That brings the greater truth
Of love’s
Acceptance
Of everything.
God Came
God came
In the form of a breeze
And played with dry leaves
For a curling moment.
Then He came
As my brother
Wearing a frown,
Dragging his ego
Like a regal gown
Yet muddied
With the whole of history.
Next, He came as emotion
Stirred in my chest
And triggering
All sorts of reaction.
He came
And He went
In form’s motion
Yet all the while
He stayed
Smiling
At everything various
And stretched between
Poles
Far and near
But remaining here
Ever-present
While all else
Played
Like the breeze
Among the crisp leaves
In the curling moment.
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.
Rose
Some are green buds
Barely begun
But pushed
By the weight of the universe
To become
First the pursed lips
Of an imminent kiss,
Then the ripe indulgence
Of a beauteous flower
Generous scent
Wished to all,
Then loose
With joy
As petals relax and fall
Scattered like confetti
Abandoned
As the church bells toll
Marking the ever-passing moment
Of celebration.
Myself
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.
Dial In
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
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
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.
distilledvoice 