Exploring The Mystery

Creatures arise, creatures vanish;
I alone am real, Arjuna,
looking out, amused, from deep
within the eyes of every creature.

I am the Self, Arjuna, seated
in the heart of every living creature.
I am the origin, the middle
and the end that all must come to.

                      -- The Bhagavad Gita

      Here are three recent poems of mine. Each, in its own way, explores the mystery of the soul.


                       ALL OUT

what stammering of mine could express so much
as the rain's palaver this morning on my window
or a gust's hoarse whisper through bare branches?

I guess I'll have to conjure some half-baked excuse
to keep fussing with this poem anyway    admitting
I can never communicate as purely as the weather

maybe I should take my cue from the cawing crows
their gutteral slang's the language of thunderheads
it's sinewed with such rich veins of night and death

wide awake    living all out    precariously balanced
at this bitter    exhilarating razor's edge    how else
can I profoundly know you      tell you who I am?

                              ***


             NOT A STONE OR A STAR

I hang out here between the stones and stars
not cold    shuttered    contained    unreadable
nor hot    outpouring    flagrant    unquenchable
but a sort of funky hodgepotch of this and that

there are times I yearn to grab and kiss you!
or fold you like an origami bird into my heart
at other's though   I don't love anything human
my profile's a headland pounded by breakers

try as I might   I can't pin this weird self down
the longer I scrutinize my soul the less I know
I'm disappearing into a Light that consumes me
not a stone or a star but a mystery fusing both

                             ***


                      HARRIED AWAKE

just as I stepped from the car a flock of starlings
swooped in low right over my head!       at that

split second I stopped being a sullen sleepwalker
stuck on autopilot    humping to the supermarket
mindlessly slipshodding ever faster toward death

at that split second I was harried from my stupor
swept up out of nowhere by one ecstatic breath
snatched into the outrageous freedom of the sky!

which state was the illusion      which the reality?
why are we all still sleeping?   Time To Wake Up!

                               ***


Holy Spirit
giving life to all life,
moving all creatures,
root of all things,
washing them clean,
wiping out their mistakes,
healing their wounds,
you are our true life,
luminous, wonderful,
awakening the heart
from its ancient sleep.

                -- Hildegard of Bingen

What Keeps Me Sane

Hard to find words in poems
                    to carry amazement:
on its ninety-thousand-mile wind,
the huge inner bird is soaring.
O wind, do not stop --

                              -- Qingzhao

     These past many weeks have been tough ones. My brother's been very sick-- hospitalized, then mostly bedridden in a rehab center. Because of his family situation, I had to step into the point position, phoning from Kansas City to New Jersey several times a week; trying, long distance, to serve as his health care advocate. Sometimes I wasn't sure which was the bigger obstacle, his several serious health issues, or the mind-numbingly dysfunctional health care system which is supposed to help him heal. He's home now, thank God, and slowly starting to piece his life back together again, although he still has a long way to go.

      Meanwhile, now I have to piece back together my own focus, energy and commitment as a creative artist. Fact is, by the holidays I just didn't have anything left in the tank, I was totally drained dry. I'd sit in front of my computer, "reporting for duty," then stare numbly at the blank screen--zero inspiration, zero motivation, zero concentration. But as any true writer knows, if you just don't have it, there's no use trying to force it anyway. The result will be dead in the water.

     Yesterday however, my desperation finally trumped my exhaustion. I found myself obsessing on my own mortality, dreading the latest undeniable signs of an aging animal gradually but inexorably slipsliding toward death. I was stuck in a negative thought loop, plunging into depression, flirting with despair. As daunting as the blank computer screen still seemed, I realized anything was better than all that awful brooding!

      Then something amazing happened: as soon as I typed the first groping, imperfect, but authentic line, my sense of dread disappeared! In facing my worst fears head on, writing about them, beginning to transform them into art, I was aligning myself with an inspiring, creating, transforming Spirit which is also the eternal Essence of who I most profoundly am. And that Spirit transcends even death. After several more hours of serious, hard-nosed revising, editing and polishing, the completed poem represented both an artistic expression and a spiritual catharsis:

             ITS HUGE BREATHING

against the sickening dread    which seems

inescapable   this bottomless void gaping

inside   an indisputable proof I'm awake

one living thing watching itself slowly die

what saving talisman will keep me sane?

there is no magic charm    just a choice

nor any graspable rescue either   only Spirit

when Its huge breathing shivers through me

I know a Reality that transcends even death

out tumble these bloody births called poems!

                            ***

     "just a choice"--  Either I identify with my mortal, limited, creaturely self--the animal ego which, no matter how temporarily robust, famous, rich or powerful, inevitably must die; or I wake up at last and wholeheartedly embrace that invisible but eternal Spirit which is the inspiring, creating and renewing Source of all I am. Whenever I'm able to do so; whenever I commit any act of unqualified creativity, then I myself become a living conduit of "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." My cringing dread is swallowed up in cosmic praise!

             SONG OF THE PROBING SHOOT

Thrusting up and outward, groping toward the Light--

a green shoot, a tunnel quivering between worlds,

a wormhole for elemental forces. Stripped on down

to the bottom line, we are this--the bravest edge

of Spirit, the farthest flung probe of consciousness.

Which means here, where I am now, facing you,

naked, utterly exposed, bare to the innermost bone,

aware of my own terror, aware you're perceiving it,

aware there's no hiding, no bluffing, no disguise,

that beyond the cleverest word games, this is Real!

What will the brain babble next? What can it try,

how get a grip on the Unknown, the Incalculable?

We shiver at these crosshairs of space and time,

one foot planted in the grave, the other in Eternity!

We teeter on a tightrope splicing birth and death.

Our intellect fathoms just a crumb of the Whole.

Our senses grasp the flimsiest shards of Grace.

We've been juked and jived, fried and fricasseed!

No computer chip can ever replace the human soul.

Be a green shoot, a lifeline spanning all worlds!

                              ***


     Creativity which expresses the Spirit within us isn't simply a certain type of activity, or even just a life-absorbing commitment. It's a conscious way of being in the world, no matter what we may be doing. It's a freedom, openness and energy which quickens and transforms everything it touches. It's what keeps us green and growing inside. It's our soul's fertile and abundant garden, watered by the fountain of youth!

Move through transformation, out and in.

What is the deepest loss

                                that you have suffered?

If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

                               -- Rainer Maria Rilke