FRANCE
Poetry by Blake Steele
written in France, 1994
A...
ABOUT THE PIO RETREAT HOUSE VISION
A FUNERAL IN FRANCE
A CHRISTMAS SONG FROM BRITTANY
A MEDITATION ON FRANCE
A POEM FOR MANY YOUNG FRENCH WOMEN
A SONG FROM SAULAGES, FRANCE
C...
COMMENTS UPON GOD FROM FRANCE
G...
GOD IS CONCERNED WITH A MAN'S FAITH
GOD LOVES MY BODY LIKE HE LOVES
THE BLAMELESS STONES
I...
I HAVE A CHANCE TO BE RESPECTABLE
I LAY WITH THE CROWN OF MY HEAD
AGAINST OLD, CASTLE STONE
IMAGES FROM LUCERAM, FRANCE
IN THE END, A SOCIETY IS
JUDGED BY THE STATE
OF ITS ELDERLY
I STOOD TODAY WHERE DEBUSSY WALKED
FOR INSPIRATION
I WILL SING OF FRANCE
L...
LISTENING AT FORT LA LATTE - BRITTANY, FRANCE
M...
MOON LIGHT AT VAN GOGH'S GRAVE
MY LIFE POURED BACK UPON ME
MY SOUL
PRAYS BEST
N...
NOTRE DAME des SABLONS
P...
POEMS FROM FORT LA LATTE, BRITTANY, FRANCE
T...
THE ABBAYE SENANQUE
THE CIRCLE'S COMPLETION
(At a hunting lodge in France)
THE COMMISSION
TO THE RARE SOUL THAT CARES AND BREAKS THROUGH
U...
UPON A SPIRITUAL TRAGEDY
V...
VINCENT
W...
WHEN I BECOME THE EARTH'S OWN LOVE
Last Poem in file: ABOUT THE PIO RETREAT HOUSE
Blake
Steele
P.O.
Box 201
Bend,
OR 97709
503-382-2864
NOTRE DAME des SABLONS
Provence - Aigues-Mortes
St Louis had them build her,
stone upon stone,
up she arose,
a stalwart lady,
fit to last ages.
Her silent spaces hold
a myriad of memories.
So many souls,
passing through the eras,
have felt wondrous
things here...
perhaps as I have felt today:
the memoried stories
that make this lady live
--and centuries of prayers
which have soaked into her stones.
VINCENT
St. Paul's, St. Remy De Provence
I.
I walked today where a tormented genius walked,
where he strove to gather his soul into some
semblance of peace.
The place was peaceful enough.
It might have been peaceful for him then,
but unmitigated passions are not easily subdued.
I know that if a man
does not gain mastery over old passions
(the ones with tough roots
twisting deeply into his brain),
they can warp him into the semblance
of a colorful fly--
a fly which catches a
sensitive eye
with rainbows of light on its wing--
yet in time, bears a worm which infests carrion.
Passions debase us if gone awry...
yet, directed a
right, they might lift us
into a swirl of starlight.
Out in the garden
I observed that the mad man learned the rough
stroke of his brush
from the bark of old olive trees...
Light was his love--color-laden light!
When one loves an element,
its essence pours through.
His passion for color must
have been great
--beyond our imagining!--
for color grew to such a force through his eyes
that it crashed through all normal, mental defenses
until
light itself drove him mad.
II.
I sat for a long time in the dark chapel
where he must have often thought and prayed,
and sent my voice to echo in the same vault
where his voice was raised.
I felt he must have been impelled in his work
by a great weight of guilt!
Love graces us with balance in its ardor,
but the soul will pass all extremities
striving to appease a shame.
Genius needs solid ground from which to launch
bright rockets in the night.
His ground gave way at last, and strokes of
color drowned him in a sea of seething energies.
(This poor man passed through a colorful hell
on
his way to paradise).
*
And now, safely distant from his lonely eyes,
or the anguished sounds of his raving,
our shoes slide upon polished tiles
(though his sandals were heavy with clay),
as we gaze at the marks of his strident passion
--and are dazed!--
called to awareness by the flattery of fame
to feel for a moment, something beyond paint!
And so, we have built him monuments,
celebrating the genius which drove him insane.
GOD IS CONCERNED WITH A MAN'S FAITH
Provence, France - 10/6/94
God is concerned with a man's faith.
It is not by feelings that things are changed
except the feelings be driven
by forces of faith!
Perhaps I learned this in solitude
amongst ancient hills--
or perhaps by the failures
of my feelings.
10/7/94
COMMENTS UPON GOD FROM FRANCE
God flies on the wings of the wind
through
the candy shop of His own creation--
tasting everything!
And to God, the poetical child,
it is deliriously delicious:
The piercing purity of starlight;
the slow ecstasy of growing grass;
the stately, erotic wisdom of the trees;
the numbling, fumdubbery of rattling stones.
All the flavors dance through His brain,
--delighting Him!--
amidst a great weight of sadness,
as the compassions of His heart
brood painfully upon
the numb, ruinous nature of men.
10/7/94
UPON A SPIRITUAL TRAGEDY
I shall write again and again
about these truths of God:
the poetical child,
the passionate lover,
the rejected one.
The churches of France are dark, depressing
relics.
Why is there no music reverberating
from these ancient stones?
Perhaps there has been too much killing;
too much pretence of holiness;
too much religious hypocrisy.
There
is a great beauty of spirit missing!
There is an essential meaning missing!
What remains is the unresolved grief
of young girls
raped by ravenous warrior monks.
What remains are old stones
upon which the brains of children
were beaten out
by the commands of popes.
And whose eyes shall gaze through glimmering dark
to see visions of justice and beauty
in communities of spirit
celebrating ancient glories and new frontiers
if not the
children of rich and vile legacies
who are young, poetical lovers...
you who are passionate, rejected ones.
THE CIRCLE'S COMPLETION
(At a hunting lodge in France)
I wandered out into sheep fields at night
to stand in the wind and gaze up
at limitless stars.
Then it hit me, as a circle was completed
and the energies of a lifetime's worth
of longing released.
*
To spin, to spin in joyous rage
under the wheel of infinity:
a wild center of streaking sparks
and holy flame!
There is an ecstatic furnace burning in my bones.
It is a fire of remembrance
breaking through a thousand griefs:
I know the light in me now is the root
of all human joy, the occasion of every sorrow!
The ruthless Mistral wind
rips away my masks
that the unknown may be momentarily known
in a drunken ecstasy of
prophetic words.
*
The wind relentlessly blew
for three days straight
as I settled back into a semblance of sanity.
------------LUCERAM---------
IMAGES FROM LUCERAM, FRANCE
There is a luminous church
which stands in the center of this village
and
tolls out the rhythm of its bells
into the night sky.
I hear the dark voices of lost boys
who seem oblivious
to the harmony at the hub of things;
I see dark-eyed girls
who nervously smoke cigarettes
and look for golden trinkets
in the markets of larger towns.
High above the village,
on the side of a wind-swept mountain,
a hermit sits by candlelight
reading old manuscripts
and longing in prayers
for a soul who might taste with him
the freedom of the spirit
in a flow of olive oil,
a paradise for the tongue
in a teaspoon of honey.
IN THE END, A SOCIETY IS JUDGED BY THE STATE
OF ITS ELDERLY
Oct. 31st, 1994 - Luceram, France
Some people live
by the regular rhythm
of the tolling of bells
from ancient church steeples;
others spend their days
hypnotized by the glaring flux
of TV screens.
Some old men till a patch of terraced garden,
nurturing forth miracles of fruit and flowers
which they spontaneously share with their neighbors
in love.
While other old men
are strapped in wheel chairs
and drool on their shoes
while they stare blankly at linoleum floors.
There are old women
who prepare savory meals for grandchildren
from recipes their great grandmothers
handed down and ingrained in them,
while others
peel
off tin foil
and microwave peas.
And in this world there are old men
with luminous eyes
who restore stone huts
built by medieval shepherds
high in rough mountains,
men who pass through twilight
into deep night
musing upon the light of candles
and the stars;
while others move into retirement homes
and play bingo on Wednesday nights.
There is a world conceived by God
which belongs
to the
souls of poets,
and there are countless other spheres
conceived by souless men.
I, for one, have tasted
sanity and peace
amongst the peasant
people
of a distant land.
I HAVE A CHANCE TO BE RESPECTABLE
I have a chance to be respectable
--rather than a wild old man
with fire in his eyes
who listens to the souls of trees
and of the stones.
I knew a woman once
in the shape of a young pliant tree.
She tossed her hair and laughed
if I spoke of anything other then the wind.
What would she say
if she saw me sitting by the fire
working on a budget?
She would shake her leaves
until black birds
rustled out of her and cawed!
Yet, one must think of security
in old age: perhaps a good pension,
insurance to pay the doctors,
the nursing home and the mortician
their dues.
Or, if one had enough love,
one could
carve a terraced paradise
inch by inch out of a stone wall
and plant there fabulous laughing flowers
amidst a riot of grape vines
and hot, black, swelling figs.
And if a pilgrim climbed up there
amidst the mists of the mountains
and over slick river stones
by the caterwaul of waterfalls,
one
could give that pilgrim a drink of new wine
and toast together young women and beautiful trees
by the light of fire on a stone hearth,
and in wild, old eyes.
----------GARD-----------
MY SOUL PRAYS BEST
My soul prays best
where winds howl
without rest,
and
tree branches
scratch and scrape at the sky...
and sheep clatter by
on well-worn stones
of paths that wind
through the memories of my mind.
A SONG FROM SAULAGES, FRANCE
I must sing the red berries
and green grass,
and blue sky,
and clouds which pass,
and the skirts of a girl
and a SheppardÕs staff,
and an old woman's smile
and
baby's laugh,
and the weathered stones
and a mossy branch:
I must sing it all
if I get the chance;
I must sing it all
if I get the chance.
I must sing the smell
of bleating sheep,
and sing the thoughts
old men keep
while whittling wood
on worn stone steps,
I must sing the promises
God has kept
to bless mankind
with all we need
from
fertile earth
and sprouting seed.
I must sing the sound
of a rooster crow
and cackling geese
and cows that low,
and sing the smell
of aged French Brie
and old red wine
that pleases me.
I must sing color and feel
and smell and sound
and a medieval tower
in the middle of town
and the weathered stones
and a mossy branch--
I must sing it all
if
I get the chance,
I must sing it all
if I get the chance...
---------NORTHWARD THROUGH CASTLE COUNTRY-------
Blake
Steele
P.O.
Box 201
Bend,
OR 97709
503-382-2864
A POEM FOR MANY YOUNG FRENCH WOMEN
How I love the Gaelic eyes,
those large brown eyes,
those cow-like eyes
above the delicately pointed nose.
I've seen many beautiful women,
but none like the French!
It is a profound tragedy
that so few
have developed much soul.
I saw a little
actress dressed like a nun once.
By the look in her eyes
I think she had a lot of soul--
or perhaps it was the deep drama
of her costumed habit
which made a
whimsical richness of soul
appear as something real in her eyes.
Women who cannot sing like a drunken lark
in a cafe
because of the pain of too much self-awareness
lack a certain, essential substance
which alone can satisfy
the heart-hungry heart.
Such is the curse
of being too beautiful
or aspiring after
mere appearances of beauty.
I once heard an old crucifix say,
"We have come here
only to grow beautiful souls..."
Blake
Steele
P.O.
Box 201
Bend,
OR 97709
503-382-2864
A MEDITATION ON FRANCE
How can one be French
and not luxuriate in the senses?
France is wild with beauty!
It is no wonder that Catholicism
is the one religion of France.
The denial of sensual pleasure
brings its own shadow of guilt and shame:
the
perfect foil
for a fully sensual people.
Yet, who is it that made this potent feast?
I believe that it is God
who best loves the riot of flowers
entwined with old stone walls
and has splashed colors of lichen moss on stone
like a mad Van Gogh frenzied to say,
"My eyes are drunk with the energy of light!"
I believe it is a radiant Maker
who formed these French trees shapely
and ladens their wispy fingers
with the jewels of fall.
Yet,
these sensual people
have put God in dim, old chapels,
to let him slowly die
on fading canvasses
once painted by artists
enflamed with divine
passions.
So Christ, the jubilant lamb,
drinks down the darkness
of a people who long to play naked
in the straw fields of summer
and to drink the wine of life
with the innocent laughter
of children.
--------------BRITTANY---------------
I STOOD TODAY WHERE DEBUSSY WALKED FOR
INSPIRATION
(Garde Guerin, Brittany, France)
I stood today
where Debussy walked for inspiration.
What else could he see
but the sky, and the sea, and the stone.
And the sky, and the sea, and the stone
milked their poignant sweetness out of him,
and
he sang...
Claire de Lune.
A FUNERAL IN FRANCE
On a gray day of cold rain
I passed a crowd laying flowers
on a new tomb
to the blare of a bugle.
Perhaps this is why
so many people here
have crucified our Lord
with dead thoughts
in countless cafes
and cathedrals--
they have suffered too much sorrow.
*
Driving in my little green car,
I have observed the land
littered with gravestones
from countless wars.
*
The bugle blows
as more tears fall,
watering their longing
for good wine, pungent cheeses,
and the making of love.
*
I wonder what they say
to bless the soul that flew away?
*
Some of the crowd goes to briefly hear
organ music swell through high domes
and look once more with
frozen faces
at the frozen face of God
staring from statues of stone...
while far above,
in a French-blue sky,
Christ
laughs as He
embraces another astonished child
into the warm beauty
of His fluid heart.
(also in Christms.poe)
A CHRISTMAS SONG FROM BRITTANY
One winter night
Christ was born,
sparrow in the sky
and the snow on the thorn,
and a big bright star
up in the sky
as three wise men
were passing by.
And a shepherd boy
out with his goats
heard praise to God
from Seraphim's throats,
while doves in the rafters
sang musical sighs
as Christ came forth
from Mary's thighs.
*
Sing Alleleujah,
and
dance around,
angels in sky
and sheep on ground,
sing love-warmed praise
with human voice,
let God and
beast with man
rejoice!
I WILL SING OF FRANCE
I will sing red berries
and old stone walls,
saphire blue skies
and passing, painted clouds.
I will sing of twisted trees,
blameless, and shamelessly thirsting
for light.
I will sing the singing of young forests
and sit with the ancient, deep stillness
of cathedral stones:
I have pressed my ears there
that
I might learn to hear
700 years of prayers reverberating.
I will sing the rhythmic ringing
of a lead sheep's bells amidst
vast silences,
and the sweet smell of cobble stones
after a sheep drove.
I will celebrate the quick,
quizzical smile of a young nun
and the cautious kindness
rising in a grandmother's eyes,
and sing of a beauty
so long cultivated into the grain of things
that even the trees remember to be elegant
in
late fall, and old, dead corn
is as vibrant as a famous, fabulous tapestry
long hung on a chateau wall.
My heart must sing slow songs
in living remembrance
of a long bath in the constant beauty
of light: exploded spatterings of golden leaves;
a land so saturated with color
that it seeps out of everything
like honey drools from a comb.
I'll sing of lavender fields,
and green castle-moat waters
of the Lady of the Lake
where
Lancelot grew a virtuous mind.
I have gathered a vial of it
and put it in a treasure box with olives
from Renoir's garden that I might share
pure imaginative
energies
with some wide-eyed child.
I will sing of a rhythm of church bells
that still may call a man's heart to prayer,
and of well-loved little garden plots
where each person has a place of sanity
to say, "By these plantings,
and these rows
you shall know my soul."
I
WILL SING OF FRANCE pg 2
I will sing of wilderness grasses
so well refined they keep their shapely form
and remember not to grow
beyond beauty-defined bounds.
I will sing of the womb
where beauty once poured
out of Heaven upon medieval minds
and showed them precisely
where
to build sanctuaries
on needles of stone
and rain-wetted lips of vast gorges.
I will sing of rock vaulted ceilings
and steaming stone floors
where hot sheep cheese is spilt and hosed away.
I'll sing to you what's in my bones...
a land of story book villages
where children's dreams were crafted out of stone,
a country where young families
live in 17th century houses of barons
and work dark, rich earth:
a land of sheep farms, goat farms,
cow farms, horse farms, farm farms,
lavishly shouting, "Famous food!" and...
"Glory to the highest!"
A people of fabulous faces
who go on hiding Christ
in dark, empty sanctuaries
until He shows himself young again,
and naked
with innocent eyes.
I will sing of sassy women...
I will sing of France!
-----------------------------------------------------
POEMS FROM FORT LA
LATTE, BRITTANY, FRANCE:
God loves my body
like he loves the stones and the sea and wind.
My body is of the
earth and earth shall reclaim it.
And my soul is of the
sea and rain; the earth and sky.
And my spirit is of
the winds and the heavens
and is longing to be
poured through my soul and body into the earth,
to bless the peoples
and animals and birds and the land.
I felt the ancient
stones commission me to sing their stories.
And the sea silently
said, "Sing my wild beauty and my mysteries."
And the earth said,
"Sing my roughness and my dark moistness."
And the sky said,
"Sing my freedom!"
And through them all
the deeper silence sounded
--and that was the
voice of God!
So I pressed my flesh
into the moist grasses
and rubbed my bones
against hard, ancient stones
until my body melted
into the opening earth
and my life force
passed into her.
And she was full of
voices--an endless dialogue
between the long dead
and the holy ones who shall never die.
And the earth cried
out when she felt me touch her...
And her cry was a dim
echo of a higher cry
coming down from some
golden light in the still center of the sky.
POEMS OF THE POEM:
I. THE COMMISSION
I received a commission today
from out of the silence
of ancient stone walls,
and from the soft, aromatic earth,
and from the
grasses
laying over the shoulders of the world
like long, wild hair,
and from the high, holy flutter
of pigeons wings.
And they were
asking,
"Who shall sing for us
our plaintive laments
and our joys in the words of men?"
And so I cried,
"I shall sing for the wind
and sky,
for the stones
and grasses
if I can but hear your ancient voices!"
*
So I listened as a field
listens
to its verdancy grow;
as a tree harkens to its roots,
until my spirit passed from me
into the heart of a stone
and
found a silent word there
in which all words of men
are nullified
and born.
Then I pressed my nose
between moist, fragrant grasses and the stone
and breathing deeply there
found a second word.
And in the sudden sound of pigeon's wings
a third word came.
Just
these three words.
It is enough...
II. LISTENING AT FORT LA LATTE - BRITTANY, FRANCE
I listened long
and
entered for a moment
the heart of castle stones,
seeking to sense in them the things
they have known through centuries.
One rosy stone spoke to me,
"I have long felt the bite of sea winds
and the sting of wind-driven rains."
Another rough stone said
"I once felt the blood of men
run
down these walls
and have since gazed only at
the empty sky.
A third stone said nothing,
for the sound of children on the shore
had
taken my heart away from it.
III. GOD LOVES MY BODY
LIKE HE LOVES THE BLAMELESS STONES
(A meditation from Fort La Latte)
God loves my body
like he loves the blameless stones,
and the luxuriant, soft grasses,
and the freedom of the wind.
The shame of flesh
is the shame of holy men
who feared passion
and saw more virtue in pain
than in ecstasy.
But I have listened to wild grasses
growing against rough, castle stones
and heard them sing in holy ecstasy and pain
as they held to each other
in the spirit of their creaturely prayer.
And so I laid my naked body next to them
and sank into their song.
I felt the supple greenness of the grasses
softly entering my belly
and the silent, jubilant stone
singing in my bones.
Just then, a wind blew through my head--
and love ravished me.
IV. WHEN I BECOME THE EARTH'S OWN LOVE
I sat with my back against castle stone
and gazed out into gray skies
as I ran my fingers slowly into
a fresh opening of earth
and smelt woman and sheep.
Then
the earth spoke,
saying that it was she who had birthed me
and claimed me again
as all the sensual goodness of me
melted back into her innocent warmth.
She said, "It is I who am the fertile wife
of naked sky,
waiting for the clean seed of his rain."
And she held me like a mother,
singing
her lullabies through the throats
of gulls and the flutter of dove's wings.
And her song said,
"The Holy Maker loves you
as he loves my blameless stones
and the patient brethren of my trees
and all the wayward people
of my lands."
So I wrapped my body in her grasses
like
a lover,
feeling with my whole being
the roots of ecstasy and birth.
Then she pushed a sharp stone into my breast
that she might recall me to my suffering
and my coming death
when I shall become her own love
as she pours my breath out
in her passion for the skies.
V. I LAY WITH THE CROWN OF MY
HEAD
AGAINST OLD, CASTLE STONE
I lay with the crown of my head
against old, castle stone
and the nap of my neck
in
soft, moist grasses
and watched a fisherman
slowly trawling by.
"A man should be alone
to clear his mind
in patient meditations,"
I thought, wondering
if he had
a beautiful-hearted woman
waiting at home
in the fragrance of her flowers
and
pungent aromas
of her love.
Full of these thoughts
I turned my face into the grasses
and smelt the raw earth
at the base of a
stone.
---------AUVERSE SER OISE---------
MOON LIGHT AT VAN GOGH'S GRAVE
I felt his ruddy spirit
quietly glowing
in the light of a full moon,
that passionate man
whose sandals were heavy
with the clay of wheat fields,
whose garments smelt
of sweat and paint
and the faint, sweet
fragrances of pipe smoke.
He knew nothing
of the praises of men,
only the sacrificial faith
of his brother
who loved him with countless deeds
and believed in him
by bestowing the gift of freedom
to
follow the colorful
muses of his passion.
The artist was blind
--as we all are blind--
busy in his ruminations
to let some beautiful thing
pass through his spirit,
through his hands,
in his time.
He wallowed in the mud and blood of it,
doing what all men of vision and passion
have done,
suffering to create
something that time may well but
swallow down into its dark belly
of forgetfulness.
He lavished color on canvasses
to relieve his pain
while God wrestled with him
to make a soul.
---------Reflections from Oregon---------
THE ABBAYE SENANQUE
There is an old Abbey in France where ordered souls sing
ordered songs. I love the stillness, the sheer harmony.
Yet, I hate worn stones that tigers no longer prowl upon.
Where is the horse shit? Where the sounds of geese
arguing? Why aren't there wild young girls running out of
doors at the soulful sounds of monk's chants to weep out
their hopes and griefs in the fields?
Children should bring flowers here: pile them in
mountainous heaps in the middle space between heavy, cold
stones and the luminous windows. There should be milk
here, and good wine set on
long tables for a love feast in
the sanctuary of man becoming God's body.
The four halls of the cloister should ring around a garden
of sunflowers, figs and lemon trees. Yellow angels would
sing in one hall; blue/green angels weep in another. And
in the red hall and the black one, secrets and passions
would fly upward to God.
I've heard of an Abbey Master who once ran naked into a
snow storm shouting Hallelujahs unto the night sky. They
ought to bring his burning body back to teach this choir
how to weave a stringent and whimsical chaos of dreams
in and out of their ancient chant melodies.
MY
LIFE POURED BACK UPON ME
My
life poured back upon me in a sheep field in France: all the longings of 30
years,
living as a stranger in a foreign land that is my country. The stars
shimmered
down upon a drunken man this life that was theirs and his, the
light
that angels sing and men must learn to feast upon. I spun under the
weight
of it and felt with my tongue a primitive film of goat's cheese still
coating
my gums. It was as the bread of life. Night was the wine. Wind
whistled
its own wild confirmation.
Some
dark dog's howl was my own howl of pain that night, for the burden of a world I
couldn't carry. The growls of hunting dogs unsettled sheep, unsettled
my
wounded and innocent heart. I remember my friend's laughter, his own
drunken
howls with the wind as he danced the dance poets and prophets have danced
before him--he was dancing himself alive!
I am
back in this American wilderness, this dull ache of sleep now. There is
work
here: Waking up work, shouting in the morning work, alarm clock work,
cold
water in your face work; yet I slip into the sleep so easily. I can
barely
pray for my life to pour back down upon me between the jet streams
overhead.
I can barely feel black earth seeping up dark trees. And in these
streets,
no dogs howl.
TO THE
RARE SOUL THAT CARES AND BREAKS THROUGH
I
remember France now, dimly, too dimly--I haven't wanted to love it too much!
But
the ecstasy is remembered now as my mind turns upon it: the effusive bath of beauty;
the naked thrill of color coursing through my mind. I remember the empty
villages waiting for men to love them, for woman to paint them wildly yellow or
red. I remember the occasional warm-eyed ones. They were too rare.
Too
rare is the soul that breaks through social proprieties to care. Too rare
the
spontaneous conversation about something real.
I
remember talking on a mountain top here, the other day, above Bend--where I
once sang praises into the teeth of the wind--with a woman who had suffered
doubts and loneliness and somehow felt what was behind my grim mask, what
nestled under my wild hat. She got right to the point, like a prophetess. I
liked that. I was too spellbound to speak the truth that melts snow under your
feet. But she uttered spirit to my spirit and I'll always remember her for
that.
9/13/96
ABOUT THE PIO RETREAT HOUSE VISION
This is about the Spirit of Life
that is fully
free
in the Law of the Being of God--
in a dynamic, flowing,
every changing harmony of Love,
incarnating through the blend
of many elements:
a house, its setting, the architecture,
its decor, stones, the earth,
wind, the clouds and color of the sky,
a
garden, bees, bird song,
crickets, chickens clucking,
the baa of lambs,
human words spoken--the people!
God's presence everywhere realized:
in the spirit of prayer, good cooking,
earthy fragrances, tantalizing tastes,
fine wine, hot home-baked bread,
open-hearted
sharing with
those hungry for God and Holy freedom!
daily readings, poetry by night,
musing, dreaming, singing,
the fire-light,
stories,
making love to God,
savoring each person,
each thing, each moment,
the music, the dancing, the laughter,
laying
on of hands, deep listening
for the heart's sounds, one voice of wisdom
through many voices, many life-stories,
confessions of truth, fearless honesty,
a breaking open of soul, the tears,
the war dance, soft comfort,
long walks, solitude in Creation,
arms raised unto the God of Grandeur,
spinning under the night sky,
the infinite clouds of stars, wonder!
silence in the inner rooms and good sleep;
the excitement of first light,
morning chants, prayers and praises,
thanks and hopes,
hand in hand out into the community:
singing songs to the afflicted,
music for the dying,
flowers for the aged,
joy for children,
jokes and laughter,
sharing the breakthrough:
You are here! O, Lord!
Here!
And look! It is we who are becoming
the expression of God
we
have been seeking--
the Kingdom now, amongst us.