WONDER
Filed opened, 4/16/94
Poetry Index
A...
A DREAM AMONGST DREAMS
AFTER THE THIRD FLOWER'S GIVEN
ANOTHER DAY
A POET MUST FIGHT TO TRUST HIS MEANING
A PRAYER FOR OUR ART
AFTER A SHEKINAH IN CHURCH
AT THE LIP OF A NEW VENTURE - A FRESH
TRANSFORMATION
AWE
AND COMPASSION
C...
CARRIED BY THE WIND AND MOON AWAY
COMBINING THE TWO ELEMENTS OF DREAMS
F...
FELLOWSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH
FRAGMENT
FROM A LETTER TO BRIAN
G...
GOD'S OWN DANCE SHALL SAVE THE WORLD
I...
INITIATION - EASTER AFTERMATH - 1994
L...
LIMITS AND NO
LIMITS
M...
MORE REFLECTIONS FROM THE EYES OF THE HEART
N...
NEW CREATION
O...
ONE CHILD STANDING AT THE TURNING OF THE AGES
ON THE HOLY FOOL
ON THE MAJOR DISCIPLINES OF ART
R...
REAL WHOLENESS
REDEEMING A PICTURE OF BEAUTY
REGATHERING
REPOSE
T...
THE DEEP MOVES SLOWLY...
THERE IS
THREE BRAIDED CHORDS
THREE METAPHORS OF WHAT WE ARE
TO THE PURE, ALL IS PURE
TWO
SPECIES
W...
WE LIVE WITHIN TWO WORLDS
WHEN THE LORD ASCENDED ON HIGH
WITHIN GOD'S OWN SWEET PASSION'S YEARNING
WORDS THAT CAME IN A DREAM
Last poem: AFTER THE THIRD FLOWER'S GIVEN
A PRAYER FOR OUR ART
Let our art, in the gracious goodness
of our Lord and in the expansive wonders
of His domain,
attain to such clarity and color,
such simple luminosity,
such rich texture of soul,
such groundedness in the earth,
(let the trees and the rocks sing),
such flight of spirit in the heavens,
(fluid with wind and wings),
such holy powers of expression,
that it pierces every human heart with light!
Let our art, in the
gracious goodness
of our Lord and in the expansive wonders
of His domain,
attain to such a love of all Creation
for the great Maker's sake,
that there be no end to its
creative diversities
in a constant renewal of inspired illuminations.
THREE BRAIDED CHORDS
Meister Eckhart, through night and day,
leads the mind to its fuller way;
old man Heschel, seizing plunder,
unveils the treasure chest of wonder;
and Francis, merciful and free,
reveals a singing poverty!
Each saint bears a gift to give
which in its force is purgative,
enhancing each a vital part
of the green and growing heart.
AFTER A SHEKINAH IN CHURCH
As
the people pour the power
of the Spirit out
in praise and love,
a sweetness fills the air
as a soft, white cloud appears
just
beyond the range of sight.
The whole room is alive with God!
*
How then shall it be
when all people
let God's fluid love
pour through them
into every canyon, upon every hill
and over the wild seas
of Earth?
AWE AND COMPASSION
(Two
covenants)
1.
First, a common bush at Horeb burned
and a voice spoke, "Do not come near!
Remove the sandals from your feet
for the place you are standing
is Holy ground."
Then, the next time around,
an entire mountain burned.
And the voice came with trumpets
which were so loud that a whole nation trembled
and stood afar off.
Moses alone was called up into the smoke and fire.
2.
First, the Son of God
burned with purity, his fierce dignity
clothed in the rough spun clothes
of the poor. Light shone!
And He said, "Come unto me
all
you who are heavy laden..."
And every place they stood with Him
was Holy ground.
Then, many people burned
and their voices were like trumpets
sounding in many tongues
which grew so loud the whole world was called near.
And all the people went up into clouds
one by one.
WHEN THE LORD
ASCENDED ON HIGH
When the Lord ascended on high Creation bowed down
and adored. Who could resist the sight of the
Lord's splendor shining in the face of the risen
Christ?
Pan and all his host worshiped. The fairy's
danced in rings of delight. Gnomes rattled their
bones in slow gnome dances beneath the earth. Tree
Sprites drew up watery joy from the deep and spewed
it into the shimmering sky. Plant angels, rock
angels, sea angels, sky angels praised with fervent
delight, for they believed that this was the
beginning of that holy dream of God the prophets
had dreamt: lions lying down with lambs, leopards
sleeping amidst the deer.
But man was not ready to understand the works of
the Most High, nor to embrace His freedom. So they
divided up powers of authority, built institutions,
invented and emphasized sacred rituals to sanctify
and solidify a priesthood's control and thereby
took terrible truth from the people.
Set free from the fear of death and enslavement to
the dark predatory powers innately woven into the
elements,
these people of the new light never
turned back in the great powers of Holy Love to
bless and loose Creation into God's freedom. But
they used their energies to invent machines and
systems and worshiped the works of their hands.
Instead of simplicity and wonder, comfort and
profit became the bywords. They plundered Creation
and turned the mysterious soul of man itself into a
commodity.
The system sucked life out of all things and filled
its greatest servants with vast powers of
corruption. But the Lord was not without his
witnesses! The Spirit of God circulated through
the shadows of the age. Candles were lit in human
hearts, small, communal bonfires sprang up in the
night.
Through pain and sorrow children of the
Spirit were born and strove to know that to fully
sing truth they must pour God's luscious light out
freely upon all living things.
Birds felt the praises of God and drew near to
sing. Weary trees adored and quivered from their
roots to the tips of their twigs with slow
ecstasies of life. The mountains skipped like rams,
the little hills like lambs, as the light of the
Kingdom grew, here a little, there a little,
growing, growing, growing on, until all the
crumbling forces of corruption
were powerless to
resist!
CARRIED BY THE WIND AND MOON AWAY
When I was but a tiny boy,
I was carried by the wind and moon away,
to where my joy they did destroy
before I had begun the play.
And so, I grew into a lad
who--carried by the wind and moon away--
remained
half mad with sorrows, sad
and shadowed by the light of day.
Then I married, and both, it seemed,
were carried by the wind and moon away
into a dark we
never dreamt
could be... and yet it sadly seemed
both light and dark all mixed with gray
--more grieved was I than I could say.
Through death I birthed a song well pleased
to be carried by the wind and moon away,
and be sung by birds in distant trees
with words which only birds can say.
*
A song is such as lives forever,
to make the little children play,
though flesh shall fail, a song fails never...
through carried by the wind and moon away.
WITHIN GOD'S OWN SWEET PASSION'S YEARNING
Within God's own sweet passion's yearning
springs forth a hot and holy burning
heat upon each hidden seed
encased within its dark of need.
And there God broods and bakes and warms,
softening seed's hard fear of harm
until they crack and open wide:
Behold, a floral flame inside!
TWO SPECIES
God has countless Pios
who love and serve his cause,
and countless Lillys twirling in His name.
Some
are those who wear the cloaks of flesh
while others, free and naked as a flame,
keep more fully to the higher laws--
but all, love their gifts to bring
and in His beauty, serve and sing.
ONE CHILD STANDING AT THE TURNING OF THE AGES
It seems time
to incarnate the dream
so many strove to incarnate:
souls with hot coals in their eyes,
driven by high dreams,
stripped by flaming dreams
longing to be born.
People who shattered their flesh
to let light break through,
pressing pieces of their bodies upon pages:
hair, eyes, skin, splinters of nails,
a fragment of a nose, pasted with blood
that others might read their entrails
--so
driven by reality's hunger to be real!
Pilgrims, prophets, wild-eyed poets
unable to embrace
anything less than life
in the nakedness of fire!
How blessed am I
to suffer so little to slowly transform
into something small,
but real! within their poem.
It is heaven's pure gifting,
a boundless grace!
because, sovereignly, by the
inerrant clock of the stars,
there is an unmitigated rising
of earth's fire
through a massive weight of the dark
to
meet falling, feathery winds of flame
from the sky--
IT IS GOD'S TIME for Spirit to be born!
LIMITS AND NO LIMITS
What can I share with you?
Only Spirit...
Only a certain fluid color
in the brain.
REGATHERING
(After reading Denise Levertov's
"The
Embroidery" again)
Oh God, my longing returns...
And with it my soul slowly climbs out
of cluttered cities
where numbers and things abound.
It is a poem about
two woman and a bear:
It is the day-woman and the night-woman
living at last together
in one small cottage,
tending one garden beneath one sky;
it is the
rough, old, rogue bear
we thought we could cage
and teach to dance our cultured steps.
He has broken his bridle
and returned to the wild.
Yet, being fully free,
he may come whenever he wills,
foraging through the garden,
and filling their house by night
with the fragrance of black forests
in the mystery of his
fur.
I think of these three,
and dimly sense a distant gold and blue--
and then, something of the deep wonder of stars!
The vibrations of cataracts
one can feel in river stones
shake my bones!
I sense faint firelight again
in the core of my mind
and smell some kind of honey in an emotional wind.
This
is the endowment
of something real within
longing to be poured into realities.
It is a slow movement of a childlike thing,
the pure essences
which
live in God's brain.
My heart longs to dilate to the warmth
of a spacious wind blowing through:
but it shall take time
for my scattered energies to return
until I can vividly dream again
of these two woman embracing in bed,
slowly melting into a luminous bride
as the bear, with its terrible claws,
tears open its own skin
to loose the beautiful bridegroom.
THERE IS
In
Christ our Lord
there is a fire of love which burns in quiet places
of
the heart;
there is a depth that is the essence of simplicity;
there is an deepening tenderness which only seems to come
through great pain;
there is an opening wonder of a continual presence.
TO THE PURE, ALL IS PURE
In God, all is pure, all clean.
The warm human fragrances of the body
are rich in His Holy Spirit.
We must discover this
within the boundaries of His love
as we become real:
The body has spiritual essences too!
They are of green grasses, the warm breath of cows,
milk and fire, rose petals and stone.
Sexual energies are holy!
They are the free essences of pure creative ecstasies.
They are laughter, and release,
they are the dance of intertwining,
and
a long rest in soft down.
Man essences blend with woman essences.
Life is born in the mind,
beauty is born in lush feelings,
baby's are born to incarnate wonders.
It is in God that all is pure and clean again!
Yet, no one can seize this pure, Holy one,
nor press themselves through His gates
by the will or force of unclean spirits:
anger,
fear, or selfish abuse.
The Holy one we all long for is free in flames,
and only those who yield themselves wholly into His fire
can know His freedom--it is similar to the wind...
Do not be afraid,
it is only our bondages--powerfully lusting to live!--
which burn away.
Then, all the life we have longed for
spills back upon us,
runs through
us like water,
delights body and spirit,
fills the soul with colors,
makes the deep heart laugh.
A POET MUST FIGHT TO TRUST HIS MEANING
The inspiration is given for a
reason.
"I am what I am," (said Popeye the sailor).
It is God who has molded me
in little tin boxes from beyond the mountains
of Armenia...
and who has washed me
from clear glass vases,
whose silver waters were poured
over naked loins in the Mediterranean sea.
Trust His wisdom. Trust His gifts.
Fly on great wings to the doors of Alaba.
Knock... Speak Life-words, Spirit words!
Fall back!
The magic doors may crush you
when they open.
AT
THE LIP OF A NEW VENTURE - A FRESH
TRANSFORMATION
Would that all who have gently opened to the light,
(those who have found
heaven and earth mingled in luminous joy
amidst the dark),
might let this light become song through their souls.
*
I dream right now, that like St. John the Baptist,
my song might cry out in this chaotic wilderness
which, in the travail of death and birth,
churns under the surfaces of things.
*
I would write songs
into a book of word songs
--a deeper kind of music
which would lead beyond itself
in the sweet music of thought
and lush awakening of feelings,
down to the pure light Himself,
into His spontaneous joy
and the murmuring silences
of Her wild, harmonious love.
*
I would write for the hidden Lilly
--being free of the appearances of beauty--
to love the golden haired woman,
that bride of the high, hidden king,
who laughs and weeps to me
out of the dark of every human heart.
*
And I would follow the path of words
which have flowed out of opening hearts,
and passing through the power
of
well-woven words
taste the confectioneries of the trees and sky!
Thus, I shall study to stay alive
by eating those unfathomable glories
found in every common thing.
*
I am now in a vast boarding school that births singers.
Its campus extends from the stars to the stars;
its great hall stands at the center of the human heart.
It is the ancient meeting hall of day and night
with walls made of clearest glass
reflecting millions of shifting faces:
humans, raccoons, bears and deer...
and images of
thunderous seas and waterfalls.
It is the most sacred building known to God or man.
*
And, carved on a great stone lintel over its doors
are these words:
"Deeper than the singer is the poet,
and deeper than the poet is the Son,
and deeper than the Son
is the wild, pure, Holy One."
A DREAM AMONGST DREAMS
I had a dream. I stood in a pool upon which floated
a thin gossamer of moss.
With a small reed (like the Piper in Blake's poem),
I wrote my poems upon the waters.
Two writings floated to the shore where two men sat.
They stretched forth their arms
and the writings floated up upon them,
transforming
into fluttering moths
which covered their arms and chests
with patterns of words.
Their faces became joyous!
One man entered a small hut
teetering upon the
far edge of a narrow abyss.
His family stood to watch him,
protected by low walls
which kept them back from the danger
of the chasm.
Out of the
abyss butterflies steamed forth
and covered the man. Caterpillars were carried
in the up surging life of frail wings
and showered down upon him.
His eyes were glittering.
I opened a gate and sat calmly upon
the edge of the cliff,
unafraid...
observing the ecstasy unfolding.
WORDS
THAT CAME IN A DREAM
Wisdom comes from practically no one in the world
except the unconstrained and easily confounded.
COMBINING THE TWO ELEMENTS OF DREAMS
Wisdom is a rare
thing,
being unconstrained
and easily confounded.
It comes from practically no one in the world
--yet is pouring forth from all things!
It is like writing poems in
filaments of moss
floating on the waters.
It is words, like butterflies,
streaming up out of a great abyss.
REDEEMING A PICTURE OF BEAUTY
You are beautiful
because you are sexual
in the fuller way:
with deep feelings of wonder,
a childlike, open innocence,
the
steaming forth of spontaneous joy!
Your energies swirl
like wild hair about your face,
whirling out of your beautiful body
which you have mastered,
trained, made free,
so that you may both laugh and play
like any free child,
then turn suddenly to silence and discipline
if you choose to
stay up, night after night,
--sleepless, weary, raw--
that you might paint masterpieces
upon bathroom walls.
FRAGMENT FROM A LETTER TO BRIAN
An hour of turning is upon the world,
death and transformation,
devils and angels close at hand.
Therefore we must be lighting up our lamps,
radically forgiving
ourselves our humanity,
digging down to the roots,
befriending our little lost child of the night,
embracing all the warm, humanness
which makes us the unique creature we are:
half of us a beloved animal,
half of us a beloved child of the stars.
I must say to you, (as I say to my own soul),
"Be opening! Dance your soul awake!
Stand
against, not with, your inner resistance,
--it is within us all!
Seek for the opening words
which create an opening spirit.
Be becoming... and, sing it!
When
we become infectious with joyous life,
when we become so tenderhearted we ache,
we are just beginning to realize
what it is to become disciples
of the Great God our Maker
--He who is the overflowing, lush abundance
of liquid light.
INITIATION
EASTER AFTERMATH - 1994
He saw a blue heron,
harbinger of newness,
silent bird of nobility and peace.
*
The little red haired boy,
who cringed at the undefined voice
of a shadowed woman
in the deeper woods,
must be gathered
into a workshop
where leathery hands
carve beautiful bowls
from gnarled tree burls.
An ancient, silver sword
hangs in a tattered, rawhide sheath
on the wall
awaiting his hands.
It takes the courage of great kings
to draw that blade.
There is a witch
whose head must be taken from her shoulders;
a tight knot in the midst of the bowls
which must be undone.
*
To be a man you must cry unto the winds
through the windows of your soul;
you must
pour your being out into Being.
*
Blue herons
are often found in the company of eagles
circling over the carcasses of enchanters,
mediums and other meddlers of the brain.
*
It is written somewhere, on a great stone,
that the greatest passion
sometimes arises out of disgust.
A wild child leaps forth to seize the sword
and do the dreadful deed.
The vile woman falls;
a goddess falls;
the black voice falls
like a hungry raven from the night skies.
*
From her broken body springs
a golden haired girl who shakes her hair
and
laughs. She holds a golden key in her hand
and runs to open many doors hidden in a dark hall.
Sea winds sweep through full of brine
and songs born from the deep reveries of whales;
golden light pours in to splash a silent violence
upon the walls;
feathers flash...
walls crumble down
and reveal vast fields of flowers.
*
A wild little red haired boy I once knew
laughs at the golden haired girl,
tears off his clothes
and runs out alone into the fields of pure color.
The little girl leaps with joy,
passionately loving such displays of freedom.
*
She casts off her clothes and runs out to seek him.
Finding him, they dance and embrace.
Their bodies melt together and fall into the flowers.
From that sacred place
arises a solitary man.
for Nathan
THE DEEP MOVES SLOWLY...
The deep moves slowly...
the matters of the heart
move like great whales
slumbering in a slow drift
of cold currents amidst the black deep,
dreaming their shadowy whale dreams
first conceived by whale ancestors
when the world was still young.
The deep moves slowly...
the matters of the heart
like great whales
arising to sing their plaintive pleadings
in expansive echoes
through the blue deep
where intricate whale song is born:
the amazing falsetto of birds
bursting from huge resonant cavities;
the bass throb of a monstrous drum
embosomed somewhere in a whale's belly.
Here, in the sea's middle world,
whale games are conceived in secrecy.
*
The deep moves slowly...
the matters of the heart,
like cumbrous whales arise,
until at last, breaking surface,
they thrust festive
spumes of spray into sea air
and with briney breath
drink the sky.
Here, on the immense surface
of the world of the sea
where man organizes his armadas,
strains his muscles to pull in fat, round tuna
and gather sleek herring into his nets,
these monstrous, ancient whale brothers
are met with children's squeals of wonder--
or the pitiless, swift harpoon
which
makes all mystery
a commodity.
*
I have often slaughtered with anxious intent
my prodigious dreams
which surface to breathe...
those potent old dreams
which have laid long in the dark,
murmuring their mysterious images
into the sleeping mind,
calling the soul back to its ancient work:
to venerate the stars, and the cragged floor of the seas
with words--
lightning fast, blue-backed, sea-words!
which, like Christ's own keys,
unlock monstrous, slow feelings
which move the mind down
into its depths
like a gigantic, lumbering whale
which growing weary of all surface sport, sighs,
and rolls its immense bulk over
to arc its great head down,
plunging suddenly down,
releasing its colossal weight
to the immutable draw of the sea,
plummeting, drifting
dropping
down,
down,
down...
into the
dark,
un-
plumbable
deep.
ANOTHER DAY
Every day is a new creation
flowing out from the holy sea,
the radiance of light
deep in the shadows
of flesh.
A river flows.
It is time, unrelentingly flowing
on. As untamable as wind,
carrying the soul
through countless changes
onto its full destiny.
We can sense the deeper destiny,
when the intuition is free to speak
in
imagination's imageries;
then we shall find no flaws,
make no judgments,
concerning the days and nights
of mortal men
who weave the distorted
dreams
of their spirit-barren hearts
into stone and steel.
Even the vilest fancy,
even the most garish lie
will cause the soul's
praise
of that deeper vision
which shoots sparks
up into eyes
and breathes silently
beneath countless empty words
which crowd the living air.
REPOSE
We are to come down low
on the earth, into the grasses,
to smell the horses and the flowers.
The order is repose.
When the wilderness comes upon us,
--and the wilderness blooms!Ñ
the soul offers its open, quieted heart
and God flows in singing
His shy songs of love.
Birds gather around, sensing His song.
Rabbits come bounding across fields
seeking out the subtle light they feel.
The
grasses stir at our feet:
it is a mole, our blind brother
who longs to let some song
slip down into his dark.
THREE METAPHORS OF WHAT WE ARE
We are the wilderness
offered to God
that He might make us bloom.
His rivers rapidly roll
down upon us.
Water
sizzles out over hot plains.
Ancient seeds soak.
The wash of water swells them to bursting.
A green unfolds.
Passionate flames of flowers open.
*
We are the deep, dim pools
offered to God
to be made luminous with light.
The water quiets and sediments settle:
those impure burdens
clouding miraculous souls.
His energies swirl.
A vortex is formed.
We fall into our own waters
and
sink down
to the ecstasies at our source:
Deep artesian springs open.
The waters which arises through our water
are warm, and shimmering with light.
*
We are the flower
receiving the ecstasy of the bee,
and we are the bee that must buzz out
bearing pollen.
GOD'S OWN DANCE SHALL SAVE THE WORLD
When God utters his little sparrow words,
like piccolo trills in the trees,
or His great resonant whale words
in the word-packed seas,
He spins in a slow eternal dance.
The currents of His robes,
(by design, or chance),
like solar winds move
through the ethers down into the core of a man,
stirring Him with love
--through a wordless instinct--
into a slow, sacred dance...
again.
ON THE MAJOR DISCIPLINES OF ART
Painting is writing with light
the light of the outer, natural world
to inform the light of the spirit.
Music, is writing beauty and deep feeling with sound.
Poetry is writing into the imaginative powers of the mind
the light of the spiritual world
with the rhythms and sounds
of the meaning of words.
ON THE HOLY FOOL
All powers spin by their own law:
I journeyed forth, all things I saw
said, "We wait for that higher rule
of love within a holy fool."
And then I knew, that I must be
God's fool, that He through me might free
a person
here, another there,
and splatter fire through the air.
FELLOWSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH
To share the ecstasy of God's beauty with others:
soul open to soul, spirit tasting spirit
with all agendas of greed
resolutely nailed to the sacred tree;
to release the wonder of the other
in the unfolding wonder of blessed self...
in the opening influences that are rivers
of holy grace. These things
are the meaning of communion,
of fellowship in spirit and truth.
Then, after the rapture of revelation, rest...
To lie down together in the undulating silence
of dark seas which surround us,
to stretch out your soul
with a kindred soul
upon the warm currents of wordlessness
and blindly drink of love.
MORE REFLECTIONS FROM THE EYES OF THE HEART
When you kneel by faith to utter a heart-felt prayer,
an unseen golden light softly encompasses your being.
When your heart, by faith, whispers,
"Thank you Father for everything,
even my worst pain and confusion,
I trust you to work
all things for eternal good within my soul,"
then, unheard by your mortal ears
angels begin singing above your head.
"Honor and glory be yours," they cry,
"Oh beautiful Lord of saving graces!"
When you touch a suffering soul with a kind word,
or
a song of hope,
when you listen deeply enough to hear
the anguish of a soul stuck
in the dark of their pain,
then God flies by on a flaming chariot
shouting, "Oh wondrous love!"
and rains his tears
upon the fields of heaven.
REAL WHOLENESS
In our brokenness
we must stay in touch with His loving grace;
and in our state of gracious blessedness
we must stay in touch with our brokenness.
NEW CREATION
(Verses On Integration)
I.
The writer births
spiritual vision
into a living echo
of its inherent movement and form
that it may be conceptualized
and celebrated.
The
singer sings
because his vision sings.
II.
Let the writer define the song
and meaning of the singer;
let the singer sing
to incarnate his dream.
III.
The wordsmith learns to sing
as his vision sings.
The singer learns to write
to clarify the incarnation.
IV.
The writer and the singer are one.
WE LIVE WITHIN TWO WORLDS
We live within two worlds.
So it is. So it must be.
To walk freely,
without internal conflict,
from one world
--sensual, and rational--
unto the other
--contemplative
and holy--
is to find the third wondrous world:
beautiful and compassionate,
sensual and spiritual,
concrete and free.
From this third
world
a inner river flows outÑ
recreating everything!
AFTER THE THIRD FLOWER'S GIVEN
The third flower given
and the night unfolds its
flowers.
Lions prowl in the trees,
showing only their glinting eyes
and shadows of huge manes;
One can feel their massive
shoulders
rolling under their hides.
Lions, even when they hunt in prides,
hunt alone!
There is a tearing of lion claws
in the deep fabric of the soul:
Dark, dreadful eyes peer through.