Start Anywhere

                  BETWEEN LINES

Start anywhere        say with the letter f

fame fails   fashion   faces   the first kiss
and the last fuck    fables die too    so do
frozen pop tarts    fried chicken   friends

one day      last gasp      no guts or glory

glazed donuts  the best   go  vital glands
stop secreting  goodbye goals  goofy gifts
grain by grain    even grief   wears away

our whole life's alphabet       gobbled up

from a to z     expunged     what a thrill!
until   useless as an expired prescription
we shrink to absolute zero   case closed

or not     replies a voice without a mouth

I'm the one between lines   beyond words
where you end I begin   while you empty
I fill   as you vanish   I become crystal clear

                               *

THE ONE BETWEEN LINES, BEYOND WORDS

     Living in such a stridently materialistic civilization has definite downsides. For instance, because we're inundated with so many things, and assailed by so much noise, we're often blind to the significance of empty space, and deaf to the importance of pregnant silence.

    All the real action, it seems, is where all the "stuff" is. After all, one of our main identities is "consumer," isn't it? We've been bombarded nonstop with evermore manipulative and addictive advertising throughout our lives. Most of that sophisticated huckstering is designed to sell us various, seductive conglomerations of matter--and by the way to convince us we can't live without them.

     At the same time the manufacture, transport and merchandizing of all this metastasizing stuff requires enormous resources of the latest (and usually loudest) modern technology. The tool-using primate is nothing if not brilliant at devising and constructing powerful machines! And most of these are noisy as hell.

     There's no such thing as "noise" in nature--only softer or louder sounds, each one contributing its sacred thread to the vast tapestry of universal music. And that tapestry, in turn, is woven on the great loom of silence. The human race invented noise the first time some "genius" decided expendiency should trump reverence--and that was a long time ago.

     To rediscover my true essence as a human being; to come back once more to right relationship with the cosmos, I must commit to reawakening my alert awareness of empty space, and redeveloping my acute attunement to perfect silence. The capacity for such consciousness is intrinsic to my authentic identity--and utterly essential to my happiness. Only by rapt attention to emptiness, only through inner surrender to silence, can I connect inspirationally with the spiritual dimension of existence.

     What I discover "between lines" is not absence, but Presence; not meaninglessless, but a Meaning so profound I can't possibly encompass it.

     What I encounter "beyond words" is not nothingness, but ultimate Reality--communion so intimate even the humblest prayer erects a barrier.

      We inhabit more than one dimension of being. But the hugest of these worlds is both invisible and inaudible. How then can I approach its threshold, unless I become the beloved companion of emptiness; unless I welcome the deepest teachings of silence into my heart?

                              *