Speakers

There are some people who can speak to the prophets

Don't ask me how

Don't ask me what they hear

   or what they say

   or who they are

But I suppose they stand in a place of quietness

A place where beauty fills their face

A place where the majesty of the mundane

Erupts like a sunrise

And in that place they find them

   the ancient ones

The shepherds of the flock of man

The ones who gathered and fed and protected us

The speaker stands

And slowly they approach

Like whales coming from the deep

One or two, or more, will surface to meet this swimmer

Slowly, fully, they approach

And the speaker forgets who he is

Forgets THAT he is

All he knows is his stand

Like a bush rising from the desert

Then the prophet stands before him

And this is how they speak

By standing

The facing of one soul against the other

Is far more than speech

The facing is a merging

The presence, full and oblivious

Is all the talk that is needed

And then it all begins to fade

Consciousness returns

And the speaker, remembering he has a body

Will stretch out his hand

Do not leave me!

   he seems to say

Leave me with a sign!

   he seems to say

But he will not be attended

The apparition will fade

Like the receding tide

There was nothing you or I could do to keep it

These beasts from the deep

No one can tame them

They will return to the deep

The speaker is left alone now

In a deeper emptiness than before

The echo that comes when the hall is stripped of the last twig

HE is that echo

And his existence
   the empty hall

There are those among us who speak to the prophets

Who stand in that place of silence

Where majesty irradiates from the mundane

But what do they say?

If even they don't know

How can we?

Arise and face the world!

Stand, only stand

And open your spirit fully

   to that which faces you

And like a sail

   you will be caught by a wind

Now violent, now peaceful

And the world will open up unto you
   its hidden dimensions

And those great shepherds shall emerge

And speak to you in their speechless speech

And sweep you empty
   hollow like a flute

And like the flute you will weep

Like the flute you will weep

And this weeping will strike the hearts of men

Who mistakenly will take it to be
   a message from beyond

But you will know it was only an echo

Only an echo

   of your own abandonment

The Beloved

The Beloved came unto me
He spoke not a word
But what we shared was greater far
   and deeper, than words

I could speak naught but his name
I was in love with him but could not express it

He drew me into his embrace
And I was his
My individuality
Independence
Self-will
Free choice
All like dirty clothes
Were stripped away

This fixation on life
The fear of death
The desire to be
To achieve
To matter
It all melted away
In this moment of nakedness

He was life
He was desire
And I was in his arms

He left me, as he usually does
And all such earthly things came back
   slowly, greyishly
Like the dawning of a drizzly day
He left only a longing in me
He left in me the imprint of him

A deeper sense of separation, my love!
Why then did you come unto me?
To give one sip to a traveler lost in the desert?
I can't understand you, my dear

Why do you neither give your full presence
Nor take it away?
Do you taunt me?
Do you make me dance the dance of love unrequited?
What a bitter dance

Or do you feel the same?
The pain of separation
Of this something which severs us from each other
Makes us wonder in the back of our head
   if indeed the whole affair really took place
If we are real, or a dream one to another

A figure remains in my mind
I see the day when breath expires
When brain and flesh finally rest
When flies the soul
That day is called "THE RETURN"

I see me saying
"My love, I have been away for so long
I was lost and couldn't find my way back"

And I see you saying
"You have been gone for so long
I have longed for you every day of the journey
But now you are home
Come, leave no more"

That is the day of our marriage
I see it, and don't know if it's real
But I see it, and it lives inside of me

My words! I chew on my tongue
But still they don't come
The words to say what is between us
To say what your love is
My dear, I can't say it
My Beloved, I can only say your name
I can only say your name

Regrets

That there is so much life to live
And too little time to live it in

That there is so much to be learnt
And too little mind to learn it with

That there is so much to be seen
But never space to see it all

That there are so many to be loved
But not enough heart to love them all

That there is so much to be done
And not the strength to do it all

Wisdom
Judgement
Choice

The crutches to deal with our existence

Brief, rushed, sundered
Blind, fumbling, searching
Finding, rejoicing, losing
Weeping, returning, resting
Understanding, finally.

Strange

It is strange being me, you know

At times in love with all of humanity

Even the most odious

At times, to even the most lovely

Averse

O soul!

Where will you find your rest?

Where will you find your place?

Do such things even exist as “rest” or “place”?

Or do you search for that which has evaporated

As soon as it was expressed?

I do not want to live

I do not want to die

I do not want to struggle

I do not want to rest

Neither being nor unbeing will suit me

Neither existence nor void

Thought or emptiness

Speech or silence

Nothing, nothing!

What DO you want

O, confounded soul?

What do you want?

Bottles of Glass

Just old bottles—green, empty and clinking

But made by investment of hope

Into brave and glorious fleets

Sparkling vessels on oceans of silver

We seal up our thoughts like a crew hand selected

And cast them away with the tide

To cross the sea of separation

The space between one and another

We will see upon whose shore they wash

We will see the lands they discover

If indeed there are others out there—somewhere

Or if the world is just a big empty place

And if they should lose course or never alight

On that legendary land called ‘another’

At least the sea... she will know who we were

And that we, at one time, were here