We are all stripped
Of our accumulations:
The stuff we call ourselves;
Hang ups, difficulties, resistances,
All that dogged memory,
And then we are washed in so many ways
Until the gleam of pure life
Shines in our eyes
And we come to each other,
Humbled and with love in our hearts,
A gleaming energy
Lightening our steps
And eroding further
The weight we thought was ours,
The weight we thought was ourselves,
The weight we carried and called
The inescapable gravity of our lives.
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.
Who is touched by grace?
For that one,
Separate an isolated,
Is washed away
As every cell bursts forth exuberant,
Every cell
A sun in its own right,
Burning in conjunction
With infinity.
Who burns in cosmic nuclear fusion
But the cosmos itself,
Alive with life’s infinite potentiality.
–
Who have I been?
I have walked as a dead man,
Dragging the corpse
Of dull seeing,
Sluggish and blind to the truth
Of unknowable life
Electric in the creation of the
Mind/body/world.
I have walked without wonder
In the wonderful,
Walked barefoot
Dismissing the cool grass,
Breathing the divine essence
And calling it ordinary.
I have looked
But missed my astonishment,
Daubing reality
With the dank dross of ignorance,
Overlooking the immense power
Contained even within a simple seed.
Of course,
The quick and clever mind Conceptualised
The quantum physics of germination,
And I did not taste
The end of the world
Exploding in bud, shoot and inevitable tree.
Oh, life,
I glimpse
But do not know you,
I taste
but do not know you,
I feel
Only the minutest drop of grace,
But drop to my knees dumbfounded,
Zeroed in the face of it all,
Pulverised and purified,
Awed
And silenced utterly.
I am caught
In a wave of well-being,
Picked up
By the surge,
Borne upon its energy
Until I glow
As fierce
As if sunshine
Were burning
In the heart of every cell,
Inundating body and mind,
And holding me
Up and afloat,
Buoyant and light.
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.
She goes to the lowing,
Rustling, cud chewing shed
To absorb a bovine energy.
From their eyes she drinks
A liquid stillness, breathes
Their heavy succulent breath
And observes their due drop snouts
Nuzzling and inquisitive.
More than anything
She finds them quite, satisfyingly quiet.
Despite the constant chewing,
Neck rubbing, hoof stomping
And fidgeting on their halters,
They exude
The deep silence of the soul,
A calm watery expression
Of grass transformed
To sweet clover thoughtlessness.
She drinks this in,
Finds resonance,
Matches their quality,
Becomes equally
And sublimely still.
I sip the sweet elixir of possibility,
Taste the unbound
And find there
Nothing but the self unshackled.
What can we be
When we step from the tight
Groove of routine,
The preprogrammed and forethought track.
I do not conceive the answer
But sense that which is not yet born,
That free form,
Unfettered and dreamy.
I drink of this possibility
Becoming drunk on love,
Bathing in the fluid of possibility alone;
A not knowing
As broad as a river,
Deepening and widening
And carrying me happily along.
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.
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.
With eyes closed
And the subtle reach of my fingertips
I sense the quivering air
Alive with energy.
I hover there
In the organ of my heart
Tasting the unseen frequency,
Intimately knowing
My brother the dragonfly
Aloft those same ethereal strands
And darting above the pool.
The pure white egret
Still on the strand,
Eying the bubbling surge
For silver
Is no less my brethren,
Nor the prey fish
Cool in the brine
And quick in the throng,
Nor too the ants scurrying indusrious.
I could make a fine list of kind:
Beast, vegetative form
And stone
And all would be kin to me,
Sensing alike
The charge-thrilling space
In vibration invisible,
A force to which we are all yoked,
Bodily bound,
Energetically impelled.
distilledvoice 