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.
god
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.
Path
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.
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.
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.
Remember Love
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 Indian Ocean
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
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?
distilledvoice 