Strange Oracle

Strange Oracle

A boy who spoke as an aged man
sat on a stump in the woods
to ponder North and its deliciousness.
"If I were youth alone" he said,
"you would not listen, or
if I were age, you would defer
a moment just to be polite, and then
swing wide your soul ship's helm,
your captaincy nirvana bound."

Few undertook the forest voyage;
fewer still saw mountain tops
behind the trees, nor wisdom
in the moment of eternity.
They merely rested there upon the stump,
for any consciousness of unity
will cast out time
and bounds,
and destinations in exchange
for glimpses of the truth.

Then it is to seize exuberance
of youth. the open patience
of the aged visitor.
Then one may detect beyond the mists
a new reality unborn, undying,
always there within,
without a prayer,
bedecked in joy--unseen, untouched,
unqualifiable, the light of light
eternally begotten, God from God
and most would think it
very, very odd.

I hear you, on your isolated stump,
your mountaintop disguised...
you are right, of course.
There is no age entitlement
for wisdom, and
there is no journey,
no arrival, nor decay.
In truth, there is no "no"
at all, to set apart
the paradise of now.

But there's a quantum jumping orbits
quite without permission,
quite without, indeed, a cause.
And yet sometimes
if we should look the other way,
he does not leap at all. It's time
to celebrate the little fellow,
for he opens up our minds,
our Bachs, our Michalangeli,
before we ever even wonder why.
~

The Vanishing God

The Vanishing God

Go home, old man, turn to your bed
and draw the covers to your eyes;
there is no papa in the skies
to hear your prayers,
were you to dare to frame them.

No spirit hovering?...to flood your mind
with golden streets? No harps
employed by pretty messengers
with sunbeam hair?...no enemies
to tread beneath your feet?

Go home.
Our censers do not swing for you;
our choristers sing out of tune,
our crowns, bereft of stars,
are tawdry bibelot
to weigh you down. Ironically,
your heaven just passed you by
and left your saving Lord to die
alone.

All you have left is the unknown,
a bit of awe, perhaps,
a sense of mystery
and cries to an eternity of silence
unaware that you are even there.

Your peace, your rest
is not in sacrifice or penitence
but listening, never mindful
of reply.

Old fellow, what have you to say?
"My children, how I wish
that you might understand
that I am merely blessed--
my only loss, impossibility
to speak of the ineffable
around my head...confounded
only by its pious adversary,
love."
~

Uncommon prayer

Uncommon prayer

it is for me to watch...
to stand in where the shadows were,
absorb the light
and fill my heart
with those vignettes of knowing,
skittering before my inner eyes
like diamond dust.

Here is my chance to age
with wisdom not my own
but wander here between the stones,
their relative array, perhaps,
a sage's gift in chiaroscuro
stone, to stone, to stone.

The night is for the cherishing,
the silent requiem,
the first and last 'Shalom'
to fade without regret.

This is where the shadows were...
Shalom to feast upon and to forget
but for the watchers,
emulators of the Holy Ones,
the breathless worshipers at Stonehenge
echoing the chant of God
across ten thousand years

and you may hear the whisper of it
now, within...death is a dream
you saw at Easter Island, and
upon a mountain in Peru.
Watch
along the deathless hours
before the sun appears.
~

Shadow Grace

Shadow Grace

How is it
that I know
that not to know at all
is gift of the divine?

How is that
no thing at all
is all the riches of infinity?

How is it that
no God, no friend
to walk beside me
leaves me
still in awe,
devoid of insight of my own
but for the absolute in ecstasy to know
that nothingness may not depart
and I am not alone?
~

Mind to Mind

Mind to mind

The door is closed. Behind it are
the congregation of the saints
and as the silence churns, each listens.
From each tower flows dharmata's peace,
the sum of emptiness, the breath of the divine.

From fantasy as this, the lore of hope—
a flood, bare of design, emerging,
feeding its perfection, bursting
as a flower to share a precious frailty
in its uniting. Now the welkin has its sway;
come rein the horses with me,
for the mystic skies are full of thunder
and the day is ours.

Come quickly. Who will pass?
You know.
You are the keeper of the door.
~

My Own, my Native Land

My Own, my Native Land

The golden grain stretched out like sheets
upon the Kansas plain, like birthright, innocent
behind the festered sun and unaware
of upstarts in the rolling Minnesota countryside,
defiant to the blistering avalanche of corn.

There were the sidewise glances,
prudent in their reticence, worn pencils
tucked behind their bibs, the markets'
vagaries aswim, Chicago far the east of home.

In Iowa as well,
the warriors of the plough,
the timeless men of bread,
the conquerors of earth and sinew,
beast and baronet,
to thread the cloth of motherland
before our birth.

Thereto in Illinois, my cradle sanctuary
nested from the mountains
and the alien sea; I am the listener
within this deep midwestern ground.

It is not still where I have been;
the voices and the footfalls
make their print in time
and may not be erased.

And though my ashes fly in space
my breath, my bliss, my bower
rests forever in the heartland of the earth.
~

Never in Pursuit

Never in pursuit

The stumbler thought of happiness
and how it crept upon him
as a spectre, extracting from the mist
without a dare, to resurrect
the Buddha's absolute delight.

There was a precedent, of course—
a self accepted ecstasy, then set aside,
forgotten as a surge of joy
may never know reprise,
will lose itself as motherhood
may bare her breast, each sacrifice
an act of love.

It is today I stumble, giddily, with him.
It is my moment to rejoice,
to celebrate no cause
but all this universe may tender,
sculpting men from mists,
molding its beatitudes
upon the desert sands,
departing with its kiss.

Ourselves are not for burial,
nobility not for the seeking,
terror not an overture to run away.
There is a fertile ground
for tears to dwell in, to enrich
the harvest tree of mirth.
It stands.
It stands, you daughters of the earth.
Cantabimus et psallemus, Alleluya
~

Strangers on the Bus

Strangers on the Bus

Your world is just about
to branch away from mine
just as the two of them converged
moments ago, and settled in;
out of thousands that I see each day
what makes me look at you
and trace your gaze into infinity?

A commonality is far away.
Did you once share a baby's wooden blocks
and build a tower for his delight,
to shatter down? ...and build again
for yours?
Did you forget?

I look across the chasm
of the consciousness that we might share,
and see it widening.
I see the numbers ranked like soldiers
in your mind, your schedule crowding in,
the memory of scent you know so well
upon the girl you'll meet in the hotel
at five.

Our lives are not commodities
we would exchange, yet still they sear
the moment with their nonchalance,
their downward glance, their inner lights
of mutuality that filter down like dust,
the likes of common friend, of taste,
of faith—all silent hasting to their rest.

There is no greeting, no goodbye,
and no acknowledgement
that either of us make.
But there is thunder
rushing in to our vacuity,
resounding still, the cry of the pursuit
in vain that you and I,
the thoughtless hosts of mystery,
will never entertain.
~

A Pre-Primary Resolve

A Pre-Primary Resolve

Allow this day
to fill with ivory-tower dreams
and carry to the booth
the paradise of hope...
one candidate
whose passionate desire
would place strong arms
upon the pilot wheel,
enabled by the miracle
of peace.

~

In Cenotaph

In Cenotaph

One may not name them, for they died
as faceless as they lived, their monument
unseen, its peak above the clouds,
remembering, as they could not forget,
projecting on their beds at midnight,
acts of faceless love.

Theirs was the courage just to be,
for that is what love is, that hate is not—
can never be, for it does not exist.
Love's incompleteness is our gift,
our stuff of dreaming, and
the mortar of our soaring cenotaph.

Love is the song of faceless ones
and ours, for it is all of us,
the countless sands of Abram's sea
who hear the call to be.
~