And contemplate the void if you would know the whole.
The muchness of the multiverse is stifling,
Preoccupation with possessions trifling,
Unentrap until the being's bared,
Freed, completely unensnared.
Lie naked now before the universal whole
And listen to the silence thundering through the soul.
I am like the tree
That shades my back porch.
I too have a coarse exterior
To protect the finer inner layers.
My trunk is scarred
By unthinking childish acts.
I am strong and straight,
But flexible in the winds of change.
I too have the life and substance
Of God in my every vein.
My upper limbs reach to grasp
The light of sky-high ideals.
I am rooted deep
In the solid soil of God-mind.
I too require, for new growth,
Quiet periods of seeming inactivity.
My fruit comes forth
In due season.
With all our likenesses
We are different,
For I can praise
Our creator.
Friends
Are people
With whom we
Share parts of ourselves.
As
A pebble
Tossed into water
Creates ripples that spread
Across the surface
So the ripples in our lives
Have touched.
We share -
I have you for a friend.
The choice:
To be a prison,
To bar, wall up, padlock, chain and deny
The Light
Which eternally glows and shines,
illumines and serenely radiates
All people, places and things it is allowed to reach;
Thus, in effect,
confining the light in me to that small place
No other soul can see.
Or To be a prism,
To unbar, unlock, unchain, dissolve the walls,
and embrace
The Light
Which eternally glows and shines,
illumines and serenely radiates
All people, places and thing it is allowed to reach
Thus, in effect,
releasing the light in me to be
The radiant light all who will can see,
I held God's presence in my hand last night,
revealed to me as fine, soft flakes of white.
Upon my glove
they lay, too cold to melt -
perfect, pure, enduring like God's love;
and though I felt
the wind's blue breath against my face,
my winter world was wrapped in wool-warm grace.
Not half in love with death, not I
Not while the robin sings
Clear throated in the dawn.
Never while the apple tree
Stands like a bride in white,
Letting her veil flow down around her
To the ground.
How could I bear to search the sky
And never see the moon through tracery
Of leaves and branches laced before it,
Or never wake to muted snow,
with small wild creatures
kicking up a sunlit, glittering dust.
Perhaps in time I'll learn to say good-bye,
And never once look back,
Lest I see the lambent maples
Glowing redly in the light,
and all my courage vanish.
But wait.
It may be that all this beauty is but shadow,
True substance yet to come.
If I can only steel my heart to lose
What I would hold close-fisted,
And trust thy promise -
Then, thy will be done.
One evening I took a walk in the woods with myself, away
From the flying dust and banners of the day.
I sought whatever grace sustained the calm of trees,
And in my soul provoked a sweet release.
All around me the silence throbbed
With tender tune, a message in the grove.
Intent, I stopped and listened
to the sounds my thoughts had made.
In silence - to a long-forgotten serenade.
Fool and poem together one.
There was no time.
And in a glint, I, drifting, felt that love and life may rhyme.
Then my heart began to beat too strong a clamor in the night.
Ashamed and frightened, like some trespassing fowl, I took flight.
Still, some special nights I feel the awe sent sudden in a flush,
And walk with watchful wonder in the everlasting hush.
The mind,
unbound,
unrestrained,
uninhibited,
reaches unknown;
knows!
Reaches beyond
unknown;
leaves little lulls
of beauty
and leaps
to love.
