WONDER, POETRY FILE 2
Poetry Index
A...
ABOUT THE MAKING OF A FOOL
A CASTER OF BONES
A FREE COMING AND GOING
A LIVING VISION IN THE WINTER
A LONGING FROM SOME PART OF THE HEART
BEYOND THE CIRCLE OF SELF CONCERN
A NEW POEM TO GOD
ANOTHER
ENCOUNTER WITH A YOUNG ARCHETYPE
ANOTHER LOOK AT A LIFE'S CALL
ANOTHER POEM ON BECOMING THE POEM
A TRUE TREE SONG UNTO GOD
B....
BELL
TONES AND SUBTLE PAUSES
C...
CHILDREN ARE THE YOUNG LILIES
COMPLETE THE CIRCLE
COMPLETE THE CIRCLE, LORD OF CIRCLES
CONCERNING
POETRY
CONCERNING THE FALSE MYTH OF PROGRESS
D...
DAVID DANCED BEFORE THE LORD
E...
ECSTASY AND ILLUMINATION
F...
FORGIVE AND YOU SHALL BE FORGIVEN
G...
GOD AND US
GOD WANTS US TO EXERCISE OUR NAKEDNESS
I....
I HAVE A LITTLE ALIBI
(For Crazy Emily In Heaven)
IN A MAN'S LOVE A HOLY WOMAN IS SEEN
AS IN A WOMAN'S LOVE IS GLIMPSED THE MAN
IN
THE TEMPLE OF THE BRIDE
I PITY WOMEN
IT IS GOD'S OWN BEAUTY WHICH SHALL
SAVE THE WORLD
I WANT SPRINGTIME TO LEAP OUT
OF
ALL YOUNG PEOPLE'S EYES
L...
LIES AND ABERRATIONS
M...
MYTHS ARE DOORS
N...
NOTHING IS HIDDEN THAT SHALL NOT BE REVEALED
NOW EVEN THE HOLY SHALL BE USED FOR PROFIT
O...
ON BIBLICAL IMAGES OF GOD THAT GOT OVERLOOKED
BY REPRESSIVE, CELIBATE PRIEST
ON MUSICAL MOTIVES AND OTHER PURE THINGS
OUR AMERICAN YOUTH
P...
PONIES CAN PLAY
PURPOSE
AND MEANING, ETC.
R...
READING GOD'S BOOK
REFLECTIONS ON TALKS BY A RADICAL MONK
RENEWAL
ROOTS
S...
STEAM DRIVEN
T...
THE DEEPEST, OLDEST DEPTH
THE DURABLE ITEMS OF EPIPHANIES
THE END OF HELL
THE
HOLY CIRCLE
THE HOLY TREE
THE MAGICAL BLUE COW HOLDS UP ANOTHER MIRROR
THE NAKED MOVEMENT OF LIFE
THERE IS A SILVER ECSTASY
THERE
IS A WHITE BLAZE OF LIFE
TO WORSHIP IN THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS
TO WRITE FROM THE DEEPEST CORE OF BEING
U...
UNLOCK OUR HEARTS
UPON
THE BIBLICAL FAIRY TALE OF REALITY
W...
WALKING WITH THE NAKED ONES
WE HAVE BEEN CAST INTO THE MILL OF GOD
WE MUST LISTEN TO THE EMERGENT
WE MUST MAKE THE WORDS OF GOD SING AGAIN!
WHAT A HOLY WONDER!
WHEN I TAKE MY IDENTITY
WHEN OUR WHOLE SOUL LOVES...
WHO HEARS THE VOICE OF GOD?
WITHIN GREEN BOARDERED PASTURES
WORDS UPON AWAKENING
Last Poem: A TRUE TREE SONG UNTO GOD
ECSTASY AND ILLUMINATION
To
rediscover the wonder of water
laughing in a high mountain stream
is a great ecstasy!
To find that same wonder
in dishwater
is a great
illumination.
CHILDREN ARE THE YOUNG LILIES
Children
are the young lilies
of God's lime green fields:
supple, bending
into living wind.
Each tender spirit
needs warm, loving hands
placed upon it,
each young, dreaming soul
needs
prayers
poured out over it
all night long.
The world, as it is,
teaches the mind various tricks
and many diversions.
Wonder
is ever in danger
of seeping away.
Only an astonishing touch of goodness
can bring the soul back
to let the children play...
And
every green, growing blade of grass
which awakens a mind
to the miracle... shall fight
to keep each young soul alive.
COMPLETE THE CIRCLE
Rip the veils of my heart,
God of glory,
that the hidden Shekinah
might shine forth!
Rip the hold of the unnatural life
which shuts you out.
Tear open the deep orfice in my core;
pour glory through
that your word might be satisfied.
And, complete the circle Lord,
gently lower me
into the humility of wonder
within the thankful place
where all is too good,
too magnificent for me,
as your light
softly radiates
throughout all created things.
Then I shall bear your water
to the thirsty child,
your
beams of love
into a battered home.
COMPLETE THE CIRCLE, LORD OF CIRCLES
Complete the circle, Lord of circles,
free me from the gravity
which has long enamored me,
blinding me back from new-born miracles.
When your movement reaches to the top
and all holds in tension there
--like
frozen angels in the air--
the motion of my growth has stopped,
until I make that vital choice
to drop my soul on the backside down
and make the circle spin around
into matter made of voice.
CONCERNING THE FALSE MYTH OF PROGRESS
No matter what the people say
there is no straight and
narrow way.
Once the gypsy fiddler's danced
through the spiritual labyrinth.
Then it's one step forward, three arrear,
and suddenly the way is clear.
REFLECTIONS ON TALKS BY A RADICAL MONK
1.
We need words that crack open the heart
and cast the wounded boy down
from
high places of influence and power.
With weeping and mask torn off,
he sinks into fertile mud.
With cries of grief he is revealed and embraced.
With
great Love he is welcomed home.
2.
A king is a man who doesn't care
that he is known as an outlaw
as long as his feet are on ancient paths
which wind through rivers of moonlight.
Dressed in rags,
the nobleman and the prophet
run on hunting paths
with wild dogs.
They are awakened by starlight
and sleep when the sun reaches
the apex of the sky.
3.
Young warriors are saved from dipping
their swords in the wrong blood
only by prophets and kings.
4.
Jesus was crucified by good men
with good intentions
to preserve their religion
in God's name.
5.
All the warm and comforting
must be forsaken
to find the warm and
comforting.
6.
A man of passion
who is a man of peace
is like a bonfire
on an empty beach.
7.
White bearded Grandfathers
sail in small boats upon fathomless seas
with beautiful, wise women
who know what a man needs to be free:
clear-eyed, quiet-souled women
who know the fiery trials
and signs of the ways
of kings.
8.
A woman's unspoken expectations
can kill a manÉ
or birth him.
9.
Only a free woman
can birth a king.
Only a king
can birth a free woman.
These two can make a real journey of it.
MYTHS ARE DOORS
Myths are doors
to experientially pass through
until the heart is cracked open
and soul floods out.
Those who fear such encounters
stand outside the myth and think they understand.
But what do they "stand under?"
Only their objectified perspective,
their cerebral aloofness.
But to understand the power of a waterfall
one must stand under the waterfall.
A SIMPLE EXPLANATION OF THE WAY
OF INTELLECT AND SPIRIT
The pleasure of observing an ice cream cone
is much less than the pleasure of eating it.
Such is the way of the intellect and spirit.
ABOUT THE MAKING OF A FOOL
The wise at last
make
the final break
with each other,
not for the sake of the end of sickness
nor to bring grief to an end,
but for the sake of their journey
beyond all things
that a wise man and woman might return
from a place of radiant light
as God's fools.
ANOTHER ENCOUNTER WITH A YOUNG ARCHETYPE
The warm, round breast
of young womanhood
is placed against the center
of my bared chest.
She is angelic, or archetypal.
She
is deathless springtide
surging through white hairs
into my mind.
THE NAKED MOVEMENT OF LIFE
The naked movement of life
is an ecstatic thing:
A blue wind moves through
the heart and loins;
a warm golden light
wraps the mind
and puts yellow sandals
on bare feet.
Such life is shameless.
There are no shadows
in the sun.
WITHIN GREEN BOARDERED PASTURES
PONIES CAN PLAY
There is an ecstatic innocence
which can only live and play
within the moral boundaries
which protect its
prancing,
dancing, wholeness
of compassionate care
and reverence for the mystery
of God and souls.
WHO HEARS THE VOICE OF GOD?
It is the child of God
who hears the voice of God.
The eternal One
speaks to the new creation
of the heart
to birth
compassion
and spiritual beauty.
The soft white breast of God
presses into the soft stomach
of the soul.
The voice of God is sweet and innocent
as milk.
The open-eyed child
is blameless
and drinks the wisdom down,
then turns, with laughter in her eyes,
and embraces the hand
of the weeping one
who lives in her shadow.
FORGIVE AND YOU SHALL BE FORGIVEN
Release all bitterness
and burdens
and you shall be released.
Roll them upon God.
He will carry them away.
Let them well up from the deep,
come up close
where you can name them
and hold them.
Then you can let them go
like gray balloons into a gray sky.
Don't worry,
the sky will part:
An infinite blue will show through.
A CASTER OF BONES
A poet is an nomenclature
of ancient things
found in
his own
dark, steaming guts.
I PITY WOMEN
Women, even young girls,
seem to have a more instinctive sense
for the salt and bread of it,
for the gossamer wing,
and humid moistness
of moss in the cracks of stones.
They feel it when they twirl
their fingers aimlessly in their hair;
when silver water slips
to curl around their nipples;
when their soft belly slides over cool sheets.
They are driven by a warm flow of dark blood
upon their naked thighs to ask
the right questions.
Most young men, meanwhile,
have only a thin, electric line
between their head and their erections.
The rest of them is shamed
to the dead, (though they beef up what remains).
Have you ever heard of a 13-year-old boy
who runs around his school yard
with a fragrant patch of semen in his hand,
proudly proclaiming his emergent manhood?
*
You women who suffer long
in your wakefulness
amongst dead men,
pity men. And... pray for us.
READING GOD'S BOOK
Between the feathered pages
of a bird's soft breast
lies
miniature spaces,
silent with little sisters
of wild wind.
Read those spaces.
The Holy one still wanders there
looking
for His home.
When you read His book of blue air
your eyes tickle his luminous bones--
and He laughs.
Birds feel the joyous ripples
of your meditations
and are stirred into song.
GOD AND US
God is our silence
and we are His song.
BELL TONES AND SUBTLE PAUSES
Today I heard a voice
which was pure, feminine music,
and it smote all self-help jargon
and overly educated psycho babble.
This woman's voice softly stoked my soul.
Her every pause and intonation
was music. And so I say,
To be spiritual is to grow a singing soul
which shall be heard in your voice
and seen in your movements
and manner of deeds.
THE DURABLE ITEMS OF EPIPHANIES
There are diamonds in the fragmented wastes
of the past
which refuse
to be dismissed,
which cannot be ground into oblivion
within the mill of the busy mind.
They pop out of the dark shimmering
networks of electric pulp
and
blare like silent saxophones,
their light flashes in fantasies
from the prime-mind of childhood:
imaginings which may lead to madness
or imperishable paradises.
RENEWAL
This is the beginning
of a fresh journey back,
struggling against the same old forces
which have always burdened our souls:
remorse, fear, anger,
dissipation, indecisiveness.
The journey is into a simple light
radiant within the full light of this moment.
Yielding
into grace is the way
--and thankfulness!
There is a subtle music
inherent in being clear:
God's singing voice
joyfully tumbles
through the soul
making it percolate!
WE HAVE BEEN CAST INTO THE MILL OF GOD
We have been cast into the mill of God,
He who afflicts us
and heals us,
who visits the sins of our parents upon us
(writing them into our bones),
yet is grieved over our distresses,
putting away our sins,
and saying, "You shall not die..."
This is our condition,
the furnace which tries us;
and what shall we say,
"Curse God and die?"
or, shall we cry out,
"Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord;
for his mercies are astonishing"?
2
Sam 24:14
PURPOSE AND MEANING, ETC.
All serves this end,
to be with our Heavenly Friend.
A LONGING FROM SOME PART OF THE HEART
BEYOND THE CIRCLE OF SELF CONCERN
That God would be made glorious
in human hearts and minds,
and that human beings would grow
beautiful and free in God,
full of goodness and wonder
in the wild and wise Lord of Host.
TO WRITE FROM THE DEEPEST CORE OF BEING
To write from the deepest core
of being
is the goal:
from the place beyond words,
from the sheer creative wonder,
the perfect freedom.
Only compassion opens those springs,
and what ever issues forth from there
is born of, and fragrant with
compassion.
WE MUST
MAKE THE WORDS OF GOD SING AGAIN!
"God is within His Holy temple,
let the whole earth sing!"
We must make the words of God sing again!
When the prophets spoke
fire leapt off their tongues
to lick up the earth.
Too often,
dust just drifts from our lips,
to subtly smother flame.
It is a free people
who shall speak a fire
which leaps up
from luminous bones.
A LIVING VISION IN THE WINTER
I saw a hundred birds
fall from the trees,
tumble from the sky
down upon a grassy field.
They ate the refuse
of last fall's
death of the trees.
There was joy and fear in the birds,
expressed in peeps and chatter
and nervous skittering.
They could only persist for a short while,
then were forced by their hearts
to arise like a whirring
black
wave into the air,
to alight high in barren trees
that they might in freedom
rub their beaks
upon branches
and sing.
THERE IS A WHITE BLAZE OF LIFE
There is a white blaze of life
when spirit and body come together
to release
ecstatic blessing.
WHEN I TAKE MY IDENTITY
When I take my identity
from the world
and all I project upon it from my own heart
I am lost
in lands of hollow masks.
But when I know who I am
by the words of God
which come
in epiphanies of spirit
and
choices of faith,
my heart opens
to the green-growing process
of becoming a man
with a substantial face
who can gaze right through
empty eyes of masks
into the eyes of beauty
hidden within eyes.
THE END OF HELL
Two angry currents
meet in a narrow gorge.
Swirling furies clash.
The churning waters
spill out into a broad,
peaceful plain.
The currents kiss
and grow quiet.
Slowly, murky sediments drop out.
Like a silver mirror
the quiet waters reflect
a brilliant sun
and a constantly shifting sky.
LIES AND ABERRATIONS
An innocent child dreams
that mothers and fathers
are luminous gods
created to dance
in warm, family circles
around perpetual Christmas trees.
Yet
cold rain roars down
gutter spouts
from dark skies
when the Christmas tree is broken
--and whose fault will it be?
The child withdraws
to dance alone
in a closed closet,
and stare at distorted shadows
of her radiant self
in a mirror
that demons hold.
GOD WANTS US TO EXERCISE OUR NAKEDNESS
God wants us to exercise our nakedness...
of faith.
ANOTHER POEM ON BECOMING THE POEM
Every poet should have a repertoire of music
inside him...
How else shall we become his poems?
But, must every poet sing?
I have heard the vapid voices of many poets
and my heart could not ascend
beyond the laboring of my head.
Enough said.
WE MUST LISTEN TO THE EMERGENT
There is something warm
and
fragrant with horse hair
and pipe smoke
which is seeking to emerge
through the portals of my soul.
There is something soft
and
slender,
something golden
and blue,
that is seeking to slip
through silver fissures
of glassy spirit.
WHEN
OUR WHOLE SOUL LOVES...
When our whole soul loves
the divine and merciful love
which loves our whole soul
then a new imaginative vision
emerges, and with it,
a new world.
IT IS GOD'S OWN BEAUTY
WHICH SHALL SAVE THE WORLD
It is God's own beauty
which
shall save the world.
WALKING WITH THE NAKED ONES
There are children
almost gone mad in their need,
who starve amidst sleepers of the night,
starving in the richness of light,
being weakened down into envy
until a voice resoundsÑ
holy in their fleshÑ
and they too long
for
a people passionate
to be the sacrifice,
like those who loved enough
to die for love...
and made their choice as strong as steel
to be mad disciples
of the holy:
walking with the naked ones
in the beginning of beauty.
IN THE TEMPLE OF THE BRIDE
We are alone, only because our wounds dream
we are alone, while at every instant
flies the singing life, and the beauty flares
out of God's eyes into our world:
like angel forms of many colors in words;
like
flames, and winds, and stones that live.
ON MUSICAL MOTIVES AND OTHER PURE THINGS
When I write a poem
for my own restless worm
that
musical, mystical cow
who walks in God's eyes
hides behind a pale moon
and fades from the skies.
When I write for the freedom
of a beautiful woman
hidden somewhere, sometime...
the bridegroom rejoices
for His scampish bride!
and sings His mystical rhyme:
while
that whimsical cow
trots out of the sun,
happy about everyone.
THE MAGICAL BLUE COW HOLDS UP ANOTHER MIRROR
The
magical, mottled Blue Cow
who walks the earth and skies
asked me what my life was like without her?
I said,
"I am like a little bird sitting alone on a branch
gazing at the skies,
afraid of falling, and yet longing to fly."
Then She looked right through me
with her huge brown eyes
and asked,
"Oh, so that is why you hold
so tightly to the branch."
ANOTHER LOOK AT A LIFE'S CALL
(Writing for the lily of God)
To give new life
to the mystical, musical
life of God
in the Christian tradition
until God's singing
moves through
us
like a silver stream
cascading in the dim starlight
of the dark.
THE DEEPEST, OLDEST DEPTH
The deepest,
oldest depth
--the depth ancient prayer chapels
can only allude to in their silences--
is the age-enduring depth
of the eternal God
who is luminous
and growing younger.
I WANT SPRINGTIME TO LEAP
OUT OF ALL YOUNG PEOPLE'S EYES
I
want springtime to leap
out of all young people's eyes,
something fresh
something implacably joyous.
Damn the dark
of the
wound-closed soul.
I damn it
because of passion
for the light!
We have sophisticated delusion
to the point
where
insanity mushrooms,
so expanding and multiplying its powers
as to birth
a new dark age.
We are incubating the vandals
who
shall devour us
without a twinge of conscience.
The young people are mourning.
Some call it outrage--
I name it grief!
Grief for the
loss of that
lime-green love
which should be shooting up
from their tender loins
into their throats
and spilling out
in mischievous songs
of wild and wise joy!
UNLOCK OUR HEARTS
It is our life's work
to open our hearts
unto the Beloved
that He might
blow
the free winds
of the Holy One
through every soul.
OUR AMERICAN YOUTH
Our American youth
should be bathed
in the Beloved One's joy!
Artesian wells
should be flowing
from their
bellies,
flames in their hearts
making radiant
their words.
DAVID DANCED BEFORE THE LORD
David danced naked before the seraphim.
Michael was ashamed of him...
Isaiah went naked for over a year.
Even his mother thought it was queer.
(I wonder what Pharisees had to say
when Isaiah walked around that way?)
Child of God, there are masks we wear--
a mirror must shatter, veils must tear.
Silver waters cascade in a bowl;
in
we dive, all naked of soul.
Become transparent! prophets cry,
die to death before you die.
Old things meld with ever new...
Christ, the Holy, sees through you.
"Look!" God shouts, and leaps around,
"A window walks upon the ground.
A sky-child opens, and I feel
the ecstasy of being real!"
A FREE COMING AND GOING
Lilly shall come
when I am free of Lilly
as God comes
when I am free of God.
ROOTS
This silence I can feel
is the same silence Jesus felt;
these stars the ones that Homer watched
before he went blind,
this water I drink has passed through the gills
of a million fish,
swallowed Jonah down,
was pumped through the heart of Abraham Lincoln,
poured
from a chalice into Cleopatra's lips.
And am I breathing molecules
that Tolstoy breathed?
New souls are best brewed up
by the heat of the spirit
in the ancient tea of the elements.
We are always at the root of things!
WHAT A HOLY WONDER!
This beautiful Spirit flowing through my brain
has been before the Universe was.
And I am just a human child
come so lately amongst
time's ancient particulars:
What a holy wonder!
these roots and things.
I HAVE A LITTLE ALIBI
(For Crazy Emily In Heaven)
I have a little alibi,
the feathered chorister cries,
for never going to the church
where holy sacrament lies:
behind a little doorway,
within a case of glass,
upon an altar of the moon,
within the winds that pass.
I am a singer of the sun
drunk with smells of spring,
lost in wild flowered fields
with hymns of love to sing.
And so when Sunday comes again
I never know itÕs past,
I like my heaven everyday
until it comes at last.
STEAM DRIVEN
When the silver shivers of the flesh,
those cold waters of the core,
run into God's fires--
watch out!
The steam might burn you!
The steam might drive things--
make things work!
A NEW POEM TO GOD
You are my lost youth.
You the round, white breast,
the slim thighs,
the free-hearted laughter
beneath careless skies.
Is it an offense
to image God thus?
Great Creator, Infinite Maker,
fire between the Seraphim stuff!
How else shall I bring you
all my heart and soul?
How else shall I be melted
into a
passionate whole?
There is a young innocent girl
who leads the lion and the lamb;
there is a curly headed youth
who is the old, I am.
There
is a round, white breast
dripping with silver dew,
a new blasphemy to tear the veils
and let the glory through.
THERE IS A SILVER ECSTASY
There is a silver ecstasy
in the golden core of God,
there is an unhealable wound
from which the amalgam flows.
CONCERNING POETRY
There is a hole
in the teat of my soul.
God, the milkmaid,
sings to me
as She wrings
the udder dry.
ON BIBLICAL IMAGES OF GOD
THAT GOT OVERLOOKED
BY REPRESSIVE, CELIBATE PRIEST
God is a great King
--his dark, radiant eyes;
his flowing beard!
And God is a slim young maid,
free spirited, spunky,
wise and beautiful.
And the Holy Spirit
is
God as free flowing
creativity and passion
that passes between
God and God.
And this God,
(the love affair),
became a poor man,
an itinerate preacher
who spent little time in church
but worshiped all night
under the stars,
letting the
King and His maid
and fiery rivers of their love
course through him.
And he walked through fields by day
in their multifaceted clasp.
And his words were clothed with images
of life and spoke the festival
of divine passion.
And thus he became the courage of their love
and clothed God
with new imagery
to awaken mindsÑ
for which he was crucified.
But the slim young maid laughed
and kissed him in the tomb
and he became
a deathless prince
who seeks an earthly bride.
This is Yahweh, the fluid, imaginative
living imagery flowered from
infinite dimensions of imageless
beauty.
UPON THE BIBLICAL FAIRY TALE OF REALITY
Once upon a time
God became a poor man...
and the man became
a prophetic rascal
and miraculous lover
of God in God, and God in time,
and God emergent in man.
Then the sly rascal died to kill
the seditious dragon of 7 seas
and thus release His captive bride
from an enchanterÕs spell of death in life
and other forms of sleep.
As
wondrous as a fairy tale,
He was raised from the dead
as a great prince,
transformed to bodily express
in unmitigated glory
the great King,
(who had made up the whole story Himself),
and His spunky, young, whimsical bride,
and the bright flowing
river of their freedom.
NOTHING
IS HIDDEN THAT SHALL NOT BE REVEALED
The dark child in me
arose from its shadows
and smote the dark child in him.
Wounds create wounds, which create wounds.
*
There is an endless abyss
which can yawn open
and scare a soul spitless.
If that soul should then run,
it shall run and run and run...
Though it puts on a million masks
of bravado--it is on the run!
*
There is a golden child
who alone can make a hungry wolf
lie
down with a lamb,
a bear and a calf feed together.
And if that child should put
its hand over the hole of an asp--
the abyss shall close forever.
*
And where is this golden child,
you may inquire?
*
It lives within a luminous light
just below the bottom
of the deepest well
of the human heart.
This is the bottom of the black well
wherein a dark child lies chained
and abandoned,
thrashing its arms and legs in wild anger.
I have heard that if we reach forth
with compassionate courage
to touch the face of that dark child
our searching fingers may touch the golden child
stretching
forth its radiant embrace.
And again, if we shall embrace that dark, angry child
with tenderest love...
the bottom of our heart drops out
and we fall through it
into light.
THE HOLY CIRCLE
With a stick, draw a holy circle on a barren ridge
where you can gaze out on sumptuous nothingness.
When you get enough spaciousness around you
it helps you dig down to open space within.
Light a small fire of sweet grasses
and the fragrant sap of trees.
Its smoke purifies the mind as soon as it arises
from the hot coal of the heart.
Mix a hawk call with the loud cry of your voice,
then shout silence into the eye of the sun.
*
The
ancient ones called upon God's name
when the world was thick with primal silence.
There were holy circles everywhere!
*
I placed three stones on the edge of a crooked circle
hastily drawn amidst slate stones and scattered grass.
The stone on the left was black as the pupil
of a deep-soulÕs eye.
The one on the right was as yellow
as a gossamer butterfly wing I beheld in a dream.
The central stone was round and plump--
white like a woman's breast or bread dough.
I prayed half the morning sitting on the black stone,
recounting every sorrow of my life
and dry weeping in the dry air,
and prayed half the afternoon on the yellow stone,
remembering all my ecstasies with thankfulness.
It was when I sat on the white stone
and laid one hand reverently on the black
and the other on the yellow
that I sang a new song of praise.
Then two hawks soared out
of the white pain of the sun in my eyes
and the whole world became a holy circle.
THE HOLY TREE
The holy tree, the holy tree
its roots and branches are deep in me,
and all the birds which God set free
shall come and sing in the holy tree.
NOW EVEN THE HOLY SHALL BE USED FOR PROFIT
If an old man should gather his heart
to dream of better ages and ways
as he tends tulips and roses around his door,
should he be faulted for the waste
of his latter years, merely lavishing soul
upon white pages with his windows thrown open
to the day and starlight?
This is an age that would plunder the holy,
recouching in science's useful tongue
ancient mysteries the wise approached
only with reverential heart offered
to the Holy Maker and all the invisible hosts
who tend our soul-growing ways.
As merchants break through bulwarks
to use even the quiet and meditative deep for profit,
poet's must fight, as poets have ever fought,
with fire-words gleaned in gardens
and the solitude of night.
Come now, watch with me and we shall keep our souls
for that Lover who has molded the human heart
into a bridal chamber erected under a veil
of shimmering stars; a stable,
dense with the holy smell of milk;
a straw and silk bed of passionate love;
a place where one dream can shatter a thousand oppressors,
where all broken things are mended.
Let us remember, through the beauty words can weave,
that wild, primal, wisdom of the ages
which is now being so energetically recast
into systems of profit.
WORDS UPON AWAKENING
Pray like little children pray.
You may ask for something beautiful.
Amen is the answer.
IN
A MAN'S LOVE A HOLY WOMAN IS SEEN
AS IN A WOMAN'S LOVE IS GLIMPSED THE MAN
I, in my masculine strength
shall be the bride, as you,
in all your soft feminine beauty,
shall bear to me
the Bridegroom.
TO WORSHIP IN THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS
We can love the beauty of the holy
and become by a mitzvah of deeds
the beauty of the holy we love.
A TRUE TREE SONG UNTO GOD
Is
there ecstasy in a tree?
Could it be that when wind shakes branches
a billion silver flashes of ecstasy
course through moist heart wood?
And, couldn't tree-ecstasy
be a true tree-song
unto God?