Inspirations: Poetry

The stranger arrived five days ago. I see him stride along the storm-line Stooped and blood weary Yet resistant to surrender, Walking miles with himself Watched by those inside Warm by fires, wondering Does he want friendship? Is he hungry to be seen And sit shoulder to shoulder With us as the dogs do? He was not expected, This tall, turkey-necked, solitary man Thin to emaciation. But he owns himself without pride And grace becomes him. Is he nobody, with nothing But the hair on his head? Has he loved?  Did she die? Does he mourn and carry her inside Reminding him of everything most cherished? Did they sit across a small table With gentle meals shared between Sinewy arms open to one another? Does he live with love still Nestled in gristle and bone? Is that his Grace? I will set out from my warm cottage To catch him up at the headland Where wind’s the fiercest. He can show me how to see My poverty as the evening sky Lit by first stars. On returning I shall light candles In every window So he might walk in. When has Grace not set us free Safe home from lonely years?

The dark life remembers What it lives without. The shadowed psyche undresses Strewing torn garments Across grass, flattened by first frost, As the bone white sliver, Pushed by damp clouds, Rises in twilight indigo. The imagination unfolds, Excited by lost affection, hapless wounds, Careless words of what we idolize And demonize, What we pray for – then regret. Can new seed, dug down with care, Transmute this woolly life? Can wrists and palms bent back in surrender, Too vulnerable to hold the knife, Carry weight, or shape mudra, Yet lift skyward? Can fingers, once cupped carefully Around white stones of wealth, Tingle in glimmering rituals? What celebration seeds the dark life? Who carries the shadowed psyche to the teat Where it suckles the moon and the bone white breast?

In late August Chromatic scales slur and thrum, Ricocheting tree to tree On a million Cicada legs. The scordatura made more brilliant by Layered crescendos of Skylarking bird, and squirrel in sharp exchange…. Except at Brahma Mutra. This first light of defining silence Is the conductor’s inhale, Arms lifted, finger extends ‘Wait-Wait-Hold Now! The arm slashes down into The morning’s polychoral cry and response. Before that prima volta, In the light not yet lush, Before the indefinite pitch of snare drum, Chimes, or Temple Blocks, I enter the silent, sacred space To wander its thousand petals, The colored fragrance of love. There the Black Prince sleeps. He with his Bee-Lords Nestle upside down, Pillowed within pink and purple Phlox, Nodding in accepted weight. This holy moment Of soundless, almost light Prepares the music within. I might become Kabir’s ecstatic flute To play my own Brahma Mutra. I am his ‘bee of the heart- Deep inside the flower- Caring for no other thing.’

The almost perfected-moon rises, Pale in late afternoon cloud Pinked with sunset’s reflection, Claiming her sky. From twilight’s descending lavender She grows dense and hard-edged, Her rabbit face pentimento revealed As Sol drops below the horizon. My almost perfected-Self Rises within Growing potent and full Despite forsaken promises Long gone dreams Dead-end journeys. Now, now this moment facing Gaia Face to face Grace ripens Redolent, burgeoning Re-generating light through cycles, Revealing will and desire.

Sol Sistere It is now Gaia’s breathless moment, The standstill hour of homage To her consort’s shortest night, When only petals, Burnt by his heat, Fall, disturbing stillness. Sol’s perfecting creates Four quadrants, four teachers, four gifts Before turning toward Winter’s underworld descent Before falling from bright Grace Before death’s introspection. T.S. was right, “Here the dance is,” Here, long sought materia magicke Formed only for Sol Sistere’s point of no return. To honor the magicke of the Summer Equinox/Stand Still night, there is a Tuesday evening class, at 7:00 PM, June 21, at the Caryl School gym in Dover center, Centre st. & Springdale Ave.  (Park in back by turning in on Whiting rd., by the Dover grocery –just before the light). We celebrate the Solstice with ritual, rich Asanas, ShaktiYogaDance, chant, Pranayama, and ALL spirits willing to become shape shifters.  Come, connect to the earth, her place in the heavens, and our place here on earth.  It is indeed a night when mystical doors open for us all to walk through.  Friends of friends, strangers and strange-ones all invited to share in creating this alchemical moment.

Osho wrote: “In a moment of meditation you suddenly see that you can move in two directions-either horizontal or vertical.  The vertical consists of silences, blissfulness, ecstasies, the horizontal consists of hands, work, the world.” Sacred Recognition   The western wind dropped away Carrying her last exhale out to sea Subduing blue-black chop, Prostrating cliff-grasses. Now the horizon could marry the sun. She lay horizontal on sea stone Between a day lost and one to come, Shadow on the stone,  Listening to light fall down Into sea-grass and sand Wet with love Green with loss. She rose within that breath Lifting her sextant To meet first stars, Bearing the graduated arc Hefting its accurate weight, To imprint her alchemical latitude and longitude.  Osho also said: “The word enlightenment has nothing to do with genius, has nothing to do with intellect.  It has something to do with discovering your real, authentic being.  It is discovering God within you.”

If I am to arc upward Spiraling toward the eternal, As archangels do, Wings curved to carry wind and stars alike. Is every effort out and up? What if the arc flows inward, archpiece of surrender, Answering uncertainty, and the unknown? How then do I take form? How shall I become if Deformed by dark nights, Proudly cobbled of minutiae And mindless desire, Yet, withstanding chaos And elegant wretchedness. I rise above the river- A Self finally seen By those who choose To walk across my stones.  Stone by stone is  That by which Daily deed carves a face,  Forged in Grace, Weight, muscle, and will Linking soul to Seer, Building over chasms, Across forever.

Oh growing one, Barely here Tender as a new scar Cut by a black scythe Opening the night sky. Rise alone Silent over one Lone tree One lone watchman On the journey Filling the same promise Pushing back darkness.