Tuesday, November 3, 2015

SO NEAR / SO FAR


                                 HIDEOUT


clinging to the underside of a leaf    fragile wings
folded    as raindrops strike its surface    my soul
lies low in the magical darkness     far removed
from timetables   deadlines   checklists   agendas

if there's some secret passage to another world
it's this    where time dissolves into timelessness
here every splash of rain is rare    strange    new
listen    our sentient planet's murmuring to itself

have you a safe refuge for the absconding soul
a holy place beyond the clutch of life or death?
without one we drown in obsession and illusion
go now    take flight    your hideout's in Eternity!


                                        ***

     Any moment we can Wake Up and tune in to the Divine and Miraculous which is always here, all around us, hidden in plain sight. But most of the time we're asleep--too caught up in brooding over the past; too distracted by the present, or too anxious about the future. A couple of Wake-Up catalysts for me have always been trees and rain. In this poem they come together, and the epiphany is magic!



                 TOUGH LOVE


intimate    elemental    a cold wind
stalks outside    agitating branches
just beyond my flimsy windowpane

winter's coming it warns    and one
will break you    will be your last

of those close companions I trust
it's the wind that pulls no punches
unsentimental    straight to the bone

tough love    taking my breath away!
but hugs and kisses don't always work

strange    to feel comforted by chaos--
the sky's slap!  emptiness with attitude!
a rough bodyguard named The Universe

some night I'll plunge into its gusty void
and keep going--star after star after star...


                              ***


     This poem can be considered the macrocosmic Yang to the previous poems microcosmic Yin--with wind the elemental agent, rather than rain. As "Hideout" expresses how the Eternal is secretly present in the smallest discoveries all around us ("To see a world in a grain of sand..." -- William Blake), so "Tough Love" evokes the Awful Sublime of the Infinite, that undiscovered country on the other side of death.  



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