If friendship is more than merely
The sharing of ideas,
More than agreement,
More than a likeness of thought,
Then,
Am I,
Like you,
In our being
Friend to all upon the earth?
writing
Identity Trap
You sit there
In your skin of ideas:
What you’ve learnt,
What you’ve imbibed,
Parroting out
Your culture
–
Just as I am spewing mine.
–
And in all this soup of thoughts,
A million-hand reused,
We take our arbitrary stand
Against each other’s placards,
Clinging upon the cliff edge of identity,
Fingers bloodless
In the fear of where we might fall.
–
But if we were loose in our thoughts,
Seeing them as harmless
Products of an endlessly spitting machine,
And not really ours at all,
Might we see
That the apparent void
Into which we might fall
Is no void to be feared
But an endless source of spaciousness.
Wealth
It’s a feeling,
Warm as a scent-laden breeze,
The succulent breath
Of a fertile night
Rich with possibility.
It speaks, and says,
“the universe is infinite,
And you,
One with it,
Part of it,
Every molecule bathed,
Are infinite too.
Drink of me,
Be drunk in me,
Wealth is love
Bubbling as creation’s
Spring;
Only through you
What is seen
Is seen.
Join the feeling
As the bee joins
Summers fecundity,
As beings all
Rise aloft
Life’s indomitable spirit.
Wealth is yours,
Your essence,
Your birthright,
And the deeper truth
Of your reality.”
The Great River
I lie back
In the great river,
Its warm waters
Lapping at my cheek,
My chin and my forehead.
The great liquid of the world
Holds me with a tenuous grip,
Perhaps only a nudge
Upon a gently idling whirlpool.
My chest holds my heart to the sun
And I am open as a child
Yet to learn.
There is sunshine on my thoughts
And eyes, closed
For the meandering of the heart
And wisdom’s language,
Subtle as the currents
Baring me.
I am alive in trust,
Surrendered to the water’s movement,
Guided by it,
Content to be borne
Where its great waters will.
Really, That Simple?
Is it really
As simple
As remembering love,
Acknowledging
The love in being
And that being is love?
–
Is it as simple
As turning one’s head,
Looking inward
To the source
And seeing
That source is love?
–
Is it that simple
To notice the beautiful
Hidden before your eyes,
Hidden in plain sight,
Love at your centre
Brimming where it has always dwelt,
–
Love waiting with open arms
For you to see
And be one
With your heart,
Finally coming home
To the home you already are?
A Dove Coos
A dove coos
In the the bell tower,
Soft and throaty
And warm
For the chicks
Loved in to the nest.
–
The Scots pine,
Lofty in the graveyard,
Stands still and magnificent
Exuding presence,
Shining with silence
And oblivious of time.
–
The woodland,
Dotted with ewes
And skewed graves stones
Chatters
In warble and whistle.
In the canopy
Birds flap and flutter unseen.
Sometimes I Get Lost
Sometimes I’m lost in thought
Whisked away to darkness
And imaginings
Fraught and perilous,
But always I find my way back
To the sun, my heart
And the light of love inside.
–
And so
I too and fro,
Losing myself
And then re-finding
What cannot be lost,
Ever the sun, my heart
Ever is it shining.
The Paradox Of Separate Worlds
In the this singular world,
This individual,
Personal reality
In which I am centre
And no other exists
But as myriad watching faces,
(Equally individual
And no less personal,
Yet experienced by me
As face, not world),
I see my thoughts
Only my thoughts,
And you see yours,
Only yours.
And we will never know each other,
For you,
As I
Are master artist,
Applying a veneer
To all
Upon which our thoughts alight.
And we’ll never really meet
Or experience
The truth
Of our separate realities,
For all I see is me
And all you see is yours,
Except in the richness
And depth of our being
Where we are undivided,
Sharing wholly
The abundance of love.
May Rain
The sky breathes
Moist upon the land,
Kisses the newness
Of just-unfurled leaves,
Liquefying the air
Until dew drop and rain drop
Dampen tree bark
With dark mottled absorbency,
And the haze of cow parsley
Scents the sky’s earthward reach
With its Milky Way.
Shriller and lubricated,
Bird call conducted
Through the denser fluid,
Cuts the sweet cloak
Of draping mist,
Amplified inside
The descended cloud,
Defined by its weight
And closeness.
And from the delicate canopy,
Born in perfect verdancy,
Coalesced drops patter,
Splatting loose and percussive
Upon fresh nettle leaves
Yearning for light.
Love Fills
I am lifted upon a cloud
As light as love
As playful and transient
As love,
Making no mark upon the world
But indelible significance.
For what else lifts us
In the body?
What else
Conveys the clouds,
Makes the moon the delicious moon
And the sun magnificent?
Even when we are down,
Crowded by thoughts,
Living beaten
By the throng of our thinking,
Still we are lifted
And still we are born
In the world and of the world,
Love in everything
Despite our tenacious denial.
How long can we hold
To absence, and the idea
Of heartless universe?
A lifetime, perhaps?
Or perhaps,
There is instantaneous recognition
That loves fills
And always has.
distilledvoice 