Come, let us reason together

Come, let us reason together
It was at the gate we waited
hoping that the wind would change,
and still within our hearts that cavity
of sure despair.
It was denial that sustained us,
and the flame of rhetoric
that threw its light upon us;
mutatis mutandis we shall win!
And we do not.

The war grinds on
and victory dies at the breast;
mother love is its undoing.
Second hand, her own sustaining
feeds our weakness
and preserves our infancy.
Most certainly it is the toys
of adult contrivance that we hurl
out of the motherland,
out of the treasure store we filled,
out of the crib of hate
we cannot understand.
~

Confessions of a Panentheist

Confessions of a Panentheist

There was no tearful parting from my God.
I merely saw him pale before the light of truth,
and fade before me. It was as if he knew
I didn't need him anymore, although
he didn't need to say goodbye,
for he was everywhere.

How can it be, his love is stronger still?
There is no "he," no icy realm,
no flame within his breath
to ward off beasts,
engage the penalty of death,
or thunder from the mountain
as we cower in holy fear.

No, we created those,
and they were phantom devils
masquerading in egoic foil
to all the weakness we might gather
to our prayers, all the feral predators
beyond the fire at the door.

The love is just for us,
the taproot of that true reality
that groans within us.
It is the stuff of Namaste
that snuffs out darkness,
re-creates a spirit peace
within each minute particle
someone forgot. How may it,
in its quietude,
rage as a storm around us,
as a hurricane within?

In truth, there is no object
to its furious assault. It is us,
in wonder absolute that this strange wind
blows to and from infinity,
and yet still bends to our control.
This cosmic mind is such
to speak in whispers,
yet it spans the curvature of time and sky
for listeners like you and I.
~

Quixote Lives

Quixote Lives

What tablets yet await our opening eyes?
What murmers through the ether rise
and coalesce on stone and slate and monitor
and on a consciousness transcending art
with but a thrust into a calloused heart?
A single year or a millenium times ten,
one prophet dreams to see a nova ray of truth
exploding o'er his longlost grave.

Feeble eyes are open,
gathering energy and filtered light,
not theirs alone.
For as a savior and his ragged band
upended sense forever after,
it is not the stalwart phalanx marching
to proclaim a magnitude of grace
beyond a bloodied beach.
It is the flaming chariot Elisha saw
that throws its light on all the history to come
when time is lost. It is the steadfast search
to offer up the blood of life,
the glistering ghost upon the mountain,
precursor of a spirit light
that floods all humankind.

The door is for the entrant,
lock unknown. The feast in splendor laid
beside Siloam's pool, Zaccheus' tree,
or the lordotic leper's bed;
Teresa's cup of water turned to wine
that I would sip after the beggar tastes and dies.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
~