Some are green buds
Barely begun
But pushed
By the weight of the universe
To become
First the pursed lips
Of an imminent kiss,
Then the ripe indulgence
Of a beauteous flower
Generous scent
Wished to all,
Then loose
With joy
As petals relax and fall
Scattered like confetti
Abandoned
As the church bells toll
Marking the ever-passing moment
Of celebration.
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.
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.
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.
My eyes are closed,
And in that seeing
Waves wash the beach clean.
I can hear them
Arriving,
Surging and falling away.
A salt laden breeze caresses my skin,
My T-shirt flapping gently;
The air is warm as a polished stone
Rounded to a pebble over eons.
Who am I
Who perceives the beach flies,
The waves disintegrating,
The claiming shadow
Beneath the outcrop
Of crumbling strata.
Who am I
On the other end of the world,
Sensing through the body’s
Fine and tangible medium?
Perhaps sensing is a sea-ragged rope,
One end anchored
In the matter
Of things so various,
The multitude names
By which the whole us spliced.
But the other end
Where the mind cannot go,
Where it peters out,
What is that?
If I tug upon that rope,
Draw myself
In the directionless direction
To the seabed of my self,
Who will I find
Dwelling deeper than depth?
Who sees from the ocean of being?
Who is
Where silence is?
Who knows
The creation,
Blessed to my ears,
Broken as wavelets
Rolling over stones,
And saltiness powdery on my skin?
Who is
In this,
Who is?
🙏
Last night
Brought a frost,
A coating of crystalline white
Drying the air, stiffening every leaf,
Crisping every damp thing,
Stilling all life
But for the sparrows.
Into this
Plooms my breath,
Brought momentarily
From the invisible;
I feel wonder at the breadth
And reach
Of the ether if my being.
I select a log,
Choosing one with flawless grain,
Straight lines, unknotted,
Placing it upright.
I lift the axe, aim
Half heft and half let it fall.
If it is true
My kindling spilts with a snap
Akin to the most beautiful synchronicity,
The grain parting
As if only a thought’s worth
Cleaved it separate
And clean.
I cut more,
And while I swing my axe
And watch my basket fill
With rough cut pieces,
I listen to the sparrows
And the stillness,
Enjoying my breath
Realising wintery all about me.
Perhaps you forgot
The searing light,
Buried it
In low-mood thoughts
And reason
As heavy as chains.
–
Oh, yes, you say,
Give me the nicotine of thought
And worldly misadventure.
Let me overlook my overlooking,
Let me ignore my ignorance
And dwell outside myself
In a swirl of worries,
While the light is left unacknowledged.
–
Instead,
Remember, not the cold intellectual light
And the optics of the brain,
But the warm body of love
Inside yourself.
–
Remember the needless state
Where the heart floats
On ethers,
And worries are nothings,
Neither fears, nor even yours.
–
Remember the you
Before the you
Who carried the weight of living,
The unfettered you
Buoyant and watching,
Alive in the now
From which all springs forth.
–
Remember the sun of love
Blazing in your heart,
Remember remembering,
And the knowing
That the heart has always, always burned,
Is never dulled
And will never ever grow dark.
There is a looking,
A looking into yourself
Where the eyes
Become ever wide.
Ever and ever wider
Grows seeing
As though astonishment
Were limitless,
And what the self is
Is no less
Than all.
And yet there is greater seeing
And wider eyes,
As astonishment
Is refreshed with each
Step into yourself,
Each looking wider still,
Seeing drawn into
An infinite expansion
Into seeing itself.
Ever wider sees the I
Behind the eyes,
Ever wider
Becomes the I.
There were downpours last night,
The patter of swollen drops
On leaves and the absorbent earth.
The guttering dripped intermittently
And sung me back to sleep.
This morning, when I step outside,
The garden accepts me
Inside itself,
Merges me wholly
With the rain-heavy air,
Easy on the breath
And dampening like a sodden blanket.
Bird calls are shrill in the moistness
As if the lubricated air
Conveyed sound more easily.
The separation between things
Is altered and healed
As though my senses,
Conducted by the closeness of molecules,
Reach far beyond
What I might call the body.
Where once there was dry air, the sky,
And things existing in it,
Now there is one fluid medium
Where all things touch.
The boundaries of bark and stem,
Feathered skin or the insects chitinous
Exoskeleton are as porous
As the canopy of the overarching tree.
And the osmosis between
Is a luxuriant movement,
Energy’s transient enquiry,
Unconcerned by the names of things
And free to pass between,
Free to roam
A borderless and singular being.
distilledvoice 