India

Fishing

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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.

Rich Moment

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The sea beeeze is thick

With the moment

As if time

Were the grains of sand

On the beach,

Granular beneath our feet

And somehow transmitting silence.

–

This moment feels pregnant

With the ocean,

Speaking through the surf,

And the traders

Shutting down their stalls,

Heeding the encroaching night.

–

The tea, served in paper cups

Is as warm as the moon,

And tastes as good

As if it wasn’t just the tongue

But the skin and the tide

And wild dogs on the beach

Which tasted it.

–

What exactly is this rich moment

In which the body feels

As if the sea had invaded.

Perhaps it’s the heart

Or the sun

Still invigorating the skin,

Or the mind’s relinquishment.

Perhaps it’s the echo

Of the argument

And truths spoken

That leaves us empty

And tinglingly receptive.

Argument

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What is the waves’ opinion

Of the couple’s fight?

For before, during and after

The sea slid landward

Then slid back,

And white noise rolled

From left to right

Along the long shore drift.

–

And what is the breeze’s opinion

Of the argument,

High in the rustle-top palms

And blowing from the horizon’s depth

Where the sunset,

Kaleidoscopic in the clouds,

Breaks apart in hues of molten orange.

–

And what is the sand’s point of view,

Shifting and flat

With each sluice

And slap of the waves,

The sunset oranging

The mirrory film

Exposed at the ocean’s call back

And salty in-breath.

Boys In The Cascade

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In the falling freshness

We are at once

Energised and washed clean,

For in the frothing

We are nameless

And without language.

We know each as children

Playing in the stream,

Wet by the flowing moment

And doused

By ever-giving.

There are smiles

And gestures of friendship;

Locked arms to help traverse

The white water,

And brotherliness

In our shared refreshment.

All that we know of our selves

Is battered from our skin

By innumerable pelting droplets

And carried away downstream.

What is left

Is a thoughtless happening

Wetting us to oneness

And joining us

To the waterfall’s

Cool and cascading being.

In Pleasantness

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I sit in pleasantness,

My eyes closed

And my ears open to the hubbub

Of a cafe crowd.

I’m not sure

If there are wandering thoughts:

If there are

I’m mildly disinterested,

Easy in the company

Of passers by,

Content in their presence.

–

Reality is a warm space

Pierced by light.

–

Where is my place

In the unbounded sphere of being,

For I am apparently turned inside out

And existence seems defiant

Of flesh’s hard-skin boundary,

The whole world as if remade

As one limitless happening.

–

I open my eyes

And feel my heart’s pleasant touch

In all I would typical dissect

From my person and call by other names.

I look at the people, the trees,

The plastic chairs

But feel only the warmth

Containing their forms,

A warmth

Reaching ever out and always.

–

Reclining in this luxurious bliss

Is the only possibility,

For love is truly uncontained

And truth is far broader

Than the personality’s curtailment.

–

Perhaps some live,

In and as

This sweet openness,

Pleasant wherever they find themselves,

Love always unveiled.

So let this be my wish, now,

To remain in sweetness

And naked to the world,

Free

And beautiful

And alive,

And in constant touch

With the divine

That dissolves all that seemed

So defined

And resolutely insoluble.

Drinking The Ashram

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I sit quiet

On a stone structure

Jutting out above the pool.

In the foreground

Wading birds traverse

The lily pond,

Taking leafy, buoyant step

After leafy, buoyant step,

Picking between the protruding buds,

Ever called sunward.

On the far bank,

Peacocks own the roof of the cattle shed.

They strut, then stop,

Heads upturned and necks quivering

And release a warble of throaty calls.

When the moment is right

They extend their plumage,

Turn a full circle on the spot,

Shaking sporadically

As if to summon the gaze of the whole world,

Draw feminine kind to the chalice

Of one hundred iridescent and fine seeing eyes.

–

Beyond the groves of coconuts

And when the mountains rise,

A dense forests climbs steeply

All the way to the clouds,

Disappearing in the mist-shrouded peaks

To collect the silver life of dew drops

From those airy passers by.

And on return

The forest conveys first dampness,

Then sheds trickles and rivulets,

Then further down at the foot of the hills

Streams spill out on to the flat plain

To quench the thirsty farmland,

Where all life bends

Upon their knees

To sip

From cupped and thankful hands.

From The Indian Ocean

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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.

Cafe

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Sitting in a cafe on a cliff

Overlooking the Arabian Sea,

Waves arrive,

Barrel and arrive again,

And an offshore wind strums

The palm fronds,

While a hippie flutters

Through guitar strings

Singing his spontaneity.

–

A fat, sleeping dog

Dreams of freedom

Beneath the table,

Limbs spasming,

Little yelps and joyful snorts

Heralding a youthful memory.

–

My love

Sits beside me

Lost in a book

And the hippie’s sweet voice

Just as I am lost

In the words of this Malabar place

That seem to come

As much from the palms’ rustling

And the waves breaking

As the instrument plucked

And the bitter coffee

Aromatic on my tongue.