Poetry Corner

This time of year, I go into outdoor mode, and thus I'm not inclined to spend so much time composing poems. But I still like to read them, so here's one by another poet ...

What’s In The Temple?

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.
The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.
If she stands still it will catch up with her.
Pause with us here a while.
Put your ear to the wall of your heart.
Listen for the whisper of knowing there.
Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.
They’ve been frightened–sat on ‘till the spirit cried “uncle.”
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can’t name.
They know he’s out there looking for them, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can’t talk about God and make any sense,
And I can’t not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.
Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,
And sense the whole tragedy of life and death.
You see there the consequences of carelessness,
And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.

Let´s be honest.
Let´s feel the fear.
Let´s be in awe with the mystery.

Look inside
and find the weeping boy
who wants to become a Buddha.

He´s craving for the love
only you can give.

Fully being itSelf,

this One Self cannot

compromise, ever.

What lucky fortune

that our eternal nature

is simply

unable to

deviate

from its Wholeness

and

pristine Freshness

for even

a “split second”,

resting infinitely

beyond time and space,

silently knowing

all that appears

in 3d

only ever as itself,

not as it appears to

the five senses

when even an inch

of separation

seems to prevail.

Thanks for

wise discernment

when

feelings and thoughts

suggest

otherwise,

thanks for

sweet surrender,

watching

appearances

play-like dissolve

as soap bubbles,

one by one,

only brilliant

light sparkling

and shining,

illuminating

itself with grace and beauty.

Thanks for the many

lovely helpers

along the

pathless path,

animate or

seemingly

inanimate.

Never an idol,

replacing

what already is.

Instead, affirming

life’s boundless

joy–

amethyst and ametrine,

the flower of life

and this lovingly

made Native American

dreamcatcher.

Nag Champa incense

from a dear friend,

Reiki from another

cherished one.

Admiring my

beloved friend’s

gorgeous

“Emptinesscafe” blog.

Lovely messages

and calls, meetings

of the heart,

Life gently

attuning all

within resonance,

it feels.

Endless, bountiful

gratitude,

bowing

to

what is.

My whole allegiance

belongs to this

one infinite heart

I AM

purely seeing

from,

as, and towards.

The alpha

being

the omega

all melts

into this

exquisite

eternal,

undimensional

love

that allows

no escape,

remains untouched

and

unceasingly

pulls us back

through grace

to itself,

from whence

it never left…

should pure seeing

don a veil

to play forgetting

itSelf.

The first hint of spring,

the Cardinals are singing,

there’s a flash of red

in the budding Birch.

It is the male showing off

to the fawn female.

She seems hesitant

to respond in my presence,

despite my patience.

Not daring to move,

lest I frighten them away,

I wait in stillness,

completely silent ...

And in that timeless moment,

mysteriously,

my infinite self

knows exactly what to do ...

so I walk away.

There are Cardinals

singing in the budding Birch ...

and that is enough.

Time sleeps while eternity stirs,
Songbirds compose morning overtures,
Blossoms sent on sweet-scented zephyrs
Fall into the dreams of two lovers.

Our lovers awaken, now his, now hers,
Beneath the covers his hand ventures,
A sleepy pretender, she demurs,
Then meekly surrenders to his murmurs.

And thus aroused, lust now ensures
A flux of pheromones from flesh and furs,
Endearments to begin, then foreplay blurs
Into a feast of sensation, and fervent purrs.

One wonders how the heart endures
The outer limits of love's measures,
Climaxing in life’s exquisite pleasures,
While time sleeps and eternity stirs.

Ahead the path rises, winding far
into the sanctum of the evergreen
toward the darkening sky. Unseen,
unbidden, an airborne omen—an inkling
of its shadow like a shaman on the wing—
quickly sweeps the startled brush,
disturbing the haven of dusk-distilled hush,
as a raven's mock laughter causes
my blood to chill. My heart pauses;
as suddenly as it arrived, the bird
subsides. A sole fir is left bestirred,
its trembling hands silhouetted in twilight,
as if it too might be moved by the sight
of tattered shrouds of cloud catching fire
in the transmutation of sunset's pyre,
while a newly minted moon on the rise
smiles upon the death its light defies.
So are these days in dissolution,
when the once luminous resolutions
of the past have been obscured by doubt;
when, undeterred, I've strayed without
objective, along an unexpected track,
leading me, like a sudden switchback,
into the dejàvu of a long-lost springtime,
when a journey another heart made to mine,
that faithful in each step, each beat,
never failed to find a path, or to meet
my wandering love. And now I see,
as these memories slip into the mystery
and I feel so infinitesimal beneath the sky,
should my heart be lost then so would I,
and the firmament in its slow turn.
No, I cannot know the journey's end,
nor how long I've left to ascend,
but in my soul a light does burn,
bright as heaven's first evening star.

 Here is a poetry session from spring TAT, April 2011

Yes, I must concede

I’m obsessive/compulsive

when it comes to words.

But they are my babies

and I must care for them.

I feed them and bath them,

then we play: let’s pretend,

peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek;

sometimes I sing with them.

I love them unconditionally,

even their vexing ambiguity

and their paradoxical nature;

even if they don’t come to me,

or always tell me the truth.

I can’t really blame them.

They seem so innocent.

And so with all my heart,

until death do us part,

we are bound together

and learn from each other.

After all I give rise to them,

and I am their redeemer.

It’s what I’m compelled to do.

Last night I dreamt of a distant buddhist
temple surrounded by boundless rainforest,
a crisscrossing trail climbing to the hilltop
where it loomed like a ship on a verdant sea.
I was home at last from a surreal passage,
wherein I'd traversed some briar-banked
river of tortuous currents, and grappled
with the demons of my soul. I awakened
then, my left brain and right arm numb
in the predawn chill, my ego dazed
and dumbstruck with awe and wanderlust,
the dream’s wordless meaning fast fading.
And yet the words whisper nonetheless:
in the diaphanous leaves of waking aspens,
in the soothing coos of a mourning dove,
in the soft breaths of a sleeping lover,
or the muffled grief of an anguished ghost,
whose troubles will not be put to rest,
until we meet and embrace like old friends.
But that is another dream for tomorrow,
as I rise from my bed to greet the day,
its apparitions now supplanting the past,
once again not-so-neatly stored away
where all our cherished realities become
a dream within a dream within a dream.