A dove coos
In the the bell tower,
Soft and throaty
And warm
For the chicks
Loved in to the nest.
–
The Scots pine,
Lofty in the graveyard,
Stands still and magnificent
Exuding presence,
Shining with silence
And oblivious of time.
–
The woodland,
Dotted with ewes
And skewed graves stones
Chatters
In warble and whistle.
In the canopy
Birds flap and flutter unseen.
Turn
From the tired old trudge
Into limitation,
Where the mind conjures
Ever decreasing lack
And multiplies of hardship.
Turn towards
The vortex of love
Spinning perfect
In the centre you forget
While straying in the dream
Of you as lonely entity,
You as lonely, separate fact.
This infinite you is limitless
And born anew,
Fresh and ever fruitful.
It calls the thoughts,
Enrobes them rich,
Colours them
In love’s ubiquitous energy,
And spins them
In upward spirals
Bringing more and more
And glorious more
In never ending
Expansion of being,
A potential
That cannot be reached
But can be
Reached into
And rode:
You,
Forever uplifted.
You need not love the self
For the self loves you.
Relax, forget about the work
Of loving, it’s not yours to do,
For the self loves
Your every limitation.
Stop attempting the impossible:
You cannot conjure love
Through will and the toil of thinking,
Just chill
For you are loved already,
Wholly and infinitely,
No part of you left out.
See you are bathed in love,
See that, only see,
Then sit back
And do absolutely nothing.
The garden is ripe with being
For sunlight
Diffuse through haze
Illuminates
And encourages
All green things
To be
Ever more themselves.
And like the plants
I expose my skin
And open my pores
And breath in
That light,
Absorb
The sweetness offered
Unconditionally,
And drink in life
Knowing, as it is mine
So it belongs to all
Whose hearts beat
And in whose veins sap rises,
And in even the static selves
Of soil and stones
And things thought inanimate,
Nevertheless
A pulse of being still thrills.
In the wind chime caressed
By a breath,
And in that very same breeze
On which birds chirp and caw
And flute about the day,
And in the corrugated iron roof
Tink-tinking with a lungful
Of sunshine,
Expanding its sun-trap back
And stretching like a luxuriant cat,
And in the lofty Scots pine
Whose needling fronds
Reach like sensing fingertips
Deep into the infinite:
These all
Are the measure of happiness.
February mizzle wets
The lights
Of snowdrop, crocus
And eager daffodil,
Soothes and lubricates
Their birth
Through soil
Mulched humus rich
And frangranced sweet
With spore’s mycelium.
To think,
Some slander this complexity,
Call it dirt and mud
Overlooking the quantum truth
Of gardeners’ gold,
Both foundation
And sustenance
For all.
Under winter sun
And mist
We leaned close
And kissed,
Remembering each other’s lips
And the fit
Of our embracing bodies.
And for a moment
We shared
The soft movement
Of our hearts combining
As all but our love dissolved.
In the ever present now
We find ourselves
Expanding
In knowing –
That we are infinite being
At the crisp edge
Of happening:
Becoming ourselves
In the unfolding of the universe.
And sometimes we forget,
Dawdle lazy
On the road
Of our making:
Obstacles scattered
By our own hand
That make the journey
Seem tiresome and long
And effortful.
And sometimes we remember
The ever present now,
And step inside ourselves
And the universe,
And the being
That we always were,
And see
We too are always infinite,
And the road
And its obstacles
Are but illusions
On an illusionary path.
In the moistened autumn air
Morning time is late,
Shuffling from the lengthening night
Through swathes of disintegrating leaves
Let loose the life that gripped
So urgent and productive
To branches now revealed.
Rooks craw in skeletal beech
Where only a smattering of bronze
Tenacious leaf, still reluctant
In the wind, cling jewel-like
And fluttering. And other birds
Pick at the glut of berries
With the needle of their song.
Somewhere in this,
Where the sky morphs
And reveals and holds
The whole landscape,
Walks the photographer,
Drinking in the all that he perceives,
Almost convulsing
With each perspective seen,
Almost pained by the utter beauty
Unfolding in fleeting perfections,
That even if time were his to own,
He could never hope to capture.
The world is dripping
Browns and auburn golds
As russet leaves, untethered
From life’s lunge and thrust
– Summer’s widened light –
Let loose the season’s
Fall, in energy unclasping
The matter made,
As all shrinks away
And narrows toward formlessness.
distilledvoice 