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.
Through the portal of the word
I remember love,
Step inside its resonance.
Truly it is unforgettable,
Yet what the mind says
In absence
Seems to veil
The unveilable,
Distract
From its absolute being.
–
I remember the love
That loves without question,
The love that simply loves,
Dissolves all in its recognition,
Ever brings forth
More of itself
In joyful abandon.
–
I remember love
That isn’t a memory
Or static thing
Locked in the vaults of my mind,
But instead
Vibrates with the essence of living,
The all of my heart.
–
I remember the place, shape
And flavour of love,
The being of love,
Always being
Always loving,
On which all find foundation.
–
I remember love,
That love
Closer to my heart
Than anything,
The love that does not stand apart
But enfolds
Simply everything.
From the ocean’s far horizons
And through the haze
Of a lazy afternoon,
A breeze,
Sure in temperament,
Comes to presence
In the buffeted leaves
Of a salt-hardy species,
Rooted in sand.
–
My hair rustles
Like the broad-leafed trees
Of the tropics,
And my skin
Feels every pulse of the wind,
Every sun-warmed vibration.
–
The afternoon
Settles in the glimmering sea
And waves roll ever beachward,
Rising up
And falling,
Curled and called under
And then sluced forward
In the tide’s fluid sinking away.
–
I am yet again touched by constance:
The air, like reality,
Dynamic in flow,
The great liquid medium
Offering a soft percussion,
The leaves gently scratching
Their waxy neighbours,
Even the crows irregular calls
And eagles’ warbling cries
Speak of this singular theme
Of stillness in movement,
A happening in the heart of things,
A now containing all that could be.
–
What am I in this
Air-caressed and skin-warmed perception?
What is it that hears the sea
Cool upon the sand?
Who’s heart,
A sponge to the whole,
Drinks in the indulgence of the senses?
–
I have no answers
But for the slithers of light
Dazzling on the turbulence
Of the world’s
Blue-green globe,
Reaching beyond my understanding,
No answer
But for the soaring eagles
Expertly high on thermal wing,
No answer
But for the sway of branches,
Supple and bending
To and fro,
Chlorophyll fronds
Like my fingertips,
Feeling it,
Alive and inside
The whole
Of God’s own synthesis.
When the universe speaks
There is a flow of happiness
For in its voice is wisdom
Saying: please join the great river of joy
Ever flowing outward,
Like mildest breath of fresh air
Come to lighten us.
In this, all mens’ hearts are one,
All womens’ hearts are one,
All hearts inconceivably connected.
And even the fractious mind
Busy conceptualising everything separate
Is not shunned or shamed,
But invited.
And even this is untruth
For busy mind is but love conscripted,
Love’s energy veiled.
For what could exist
Outside everything?
Who in God is beyond
The infinite?
Where is this outside,
This place cut off
And separated from the wholeness?
What wholeness could wholeness be
If there was another in the realm?
And where else would we look for wholeness,
But in wholeness,
There being nothing but
Its infinity in which to be?
The fluid sea washes
On the shores of myself,
Half mix
Of night’s starlight
Swirling among phosphorus blooms,
A myriad microorganisms
Mirroring heavenly cosmos.
–
I feel salt sea
The brine waters of myself
Pulsing in time
With all the universe,
For I am half mix
Of cosmos
Swirling skyward,
And the earthen matter
Transfixed and tied by gravity.
–
I am
But the fluid sea
Speaking in waves,
My pen sketching moonlight slithers
Silvering the cusp
Of words,
Half mix
Of universe
And the brine-like being
Bathing me.
Thank you Lord
For my heart floats free
In the amnion of love.
I feel it there
Breathing borderless being,
A fluid bathing
In the broad waters of the one self.
Thank you Lord
For with eyes open
I see through a lense of love.
For so long I mistook you
In the world
As flat and featureless
And ached with every minute dull,
Yet now I see miracles:
The mosquito feasting on my skin,
The church lit yellow in the night,
The drone blinking high above my head,
The crickets chirruping,
The dogs barking to their fellow mates,
The simple pleasure
And description of my pen,
And all myriad things unnumbered
And unrecountable
In scope I could not list
Nor tell,
Nor ever find
Unreachable end,
For none seems untouched
By light of life,
Enabling the whole its happening,
The dancing now
Filled beyond truly reasonable.
Oh thank you Lord
For allowing me life,
My old and static heart
Dissolved to but a current,
A brief shimmering,
A joy
Thrilling loose in spirit,
And bringing deepest recognition
That there is nothing
In all this
But you.
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
You can dwell
In the world’s messy configuration
In the constant push and pull
Of competition,
In its hurts
And blame’s countless catalogues
Of responsibility
Reaching far too far back in time.
–
Or
–
Recognise that love is here,
The source and solution to it all:
Love in your being,
The very being of the world
And heavens inconceivable,
The being you are
When all else is stripped bare
And you are clean
As the baby you once were,
With your heart on fire
With truth unthought, unmade
And unblemished.
In love
I am unmeasured by the world
And so I am free
As nothing
But the empty space,
Wide as the universe
Is unknowable,
Deep as starlight
From light years unfathomable,
Unexisting in peace
And effortlessly happy.
What am I?
What am I?
What am I?
Only the taste of falling
Inside myself,
Eternity’s sweetness
Loose on the windless wind,
Unbound and unstuck,
Devoid in the void,
Annihilated formless.
Close your eyes
And go naked to the love
Free in the centre of you.
–
This love
Knows nothing
But being alive
–
And the one nakedness
From which all things are.
Be in being
–
Where all duality
Is dissolved,
Where all that is fragmentary
–
Slips loose,
And even the one who might hold
Is dissolved.
–
Close your eyes
And go naked to the love,
The free being inside.
distilledvoice 