Roots And Stars

Here's another poem/drawing combo from my book The Sacred Well: Songs From The Waters Of Life.

             THE UNKNOWABLE WORD

We don't know a word to say certain things.
They're too far inside. Silence attends them.
Every effort at speech fritters out and away.
This is how it is when you capsize my soul.
Our talk confounds us. For behind the voices
there's a Being who does not speak at all.

We don't know a word to say certain things.
The true name for that One is Namelessness,
our glances seeking an inconceivable Face.
I have felt the eyes and sensed the smile.
The clean light of each morning reveals it.
When night gropes up from roots, it shines.

We don't know a word to say certain things.
But because we stammer, there's hope for us.
As long as Mystery survives, and Magnitude,
I'll encounter you with growing awe, amazed
at what forever eludes me; yet grateful, too,
that beauty has a Source beyond this world.

                               *

And I, infinitesimal being,

drunk with the great starry

void,

likeness, image of

mystery,

felt myself a pure part

of the abyss;

I wheeled with the stars,

my heart broke loose on the wind.

-- Pablo Neruda --