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SIMPLE LIGHT #1
Starting mid September, 1990

HE HAS PUT HIS WORD UPON MY LIPS

Wind blows out of my mouth.

A River flows out of my mouth.

A Lamb springs forth from my mouth.

A Lion leaps out of my mouth.

Fire falls from my mouth.

Seven Swords piece my mouth.

A Lover bends and kisses my mouth

and ten thousand stars fall into

a still, lucid pool of light.

The pool blazes!

All the creatures of God

spring up out of that pool

singing forth their animal voices

like starlight.

THINK OF THE CAT

Sensitivities for the daylight

are developed in the dark of the night.

Think of the cat!

Be nocturnal with God.

Develop big eyes,

and when the day comes

light will ring upon nerves

like silver bells.

Ah! the musical ecstasy

of God's pattering light!

A MEDITATION ON MEISTER ECHART

Were we conceived in laughter

by Divine joy

down in the belly of God?

Is it God's holy laughter

which shakes out beings

in a discharge of clear light

--which act we call birth

and origin?

LIFE DEFINED

When we pour out ourselves as a blessing,

we are poured into ourselves as the blessed.

MANNA I

Last week's glory is already full of worms

and death-thoughts of knowledge.

MANNA II

How the worms hunger for the heavenly food.

No-eyed, their suction cupped mouths

cover little snapping beaks

which tear at the lacy white waffers.

They bore their bodies inside by devouring,

and wriggle, hidden in the food of angels.

UPON ART IN THIS WORLD

The blind singer sat dumb

and thirsting in the araba

until he ground dry bread into his eyes

and his mouth gaped upon the wind.

Then clear, honeyed water seeped out of stone.

Sucking water, he sang.

The dying drew near

and found the rock.

They drank and named it

the singing stone.

Spurning the dry bread

and the wind

they sucked upon the stone...

and soon died.

TO BE WITH EYES LIKE FLAMES OF FIRE

Make me to remember!

The smallest mouse of a meek soul

brown and plain, unassuming

not flashing in the eye its sinuous flesh;

but fat, pimply, unsure,

unable to meet gaze with gaze,

darting the eyes down--

this one is longed for by God!

This one is the greatest treasure of His graces.

This one is the very one He envisions everlastingly

bursting forth like a white sun;

clothed with silver moonlight;

with hair like falling fire;

with eyes like the bells of the Pleiades;

with nose like lilac blossoms;

with neck like Greek alabaster;

with breasts like bounding lambs;

with belly like thistledown;

with thighs like summer winds;

with feet like leopards.

UPON THE HIGHEST ASSURANCE

I am not like God.

I am not so secure in my own loving being

that I can withstand all rejection,

all evil blasts

until my beloved comes

to love me in return.

I am a wounded creature

who needs to be upheld

in the graces of love.

I need to be loved....

Yet I am loved!

Beyond all telling,

I am loved!

And as I face my deepest fears,

and as I face my greatest pain,

I know more fully

--into all freedoms--

that unfailingly,

I am loved!

Though my parents should forsake me,

God will bear me up.

Though a mother should forget her nursing child,

God shall not cast me from Her breast.

Though a man, out of hardness or pain,

should turn from a woman,

God shall never turn from me, His bride,

until I am healed and holy,

courageous and wild

in the disciplined beauties

of His free Kingdom.

WELCOME TO THE INNER CIRCLE

A starry sound

blows through the King's countenance:

every facial line, light etched,

every demeanor, demure.

This King rules

royal beings:

His ancient Kings

and young, ancient Queens

who have forgotten his face.

But he shall recall them...

through images, and shadowy illusions,

and unexpected flights of fancy,

and the numinous.

Therefore, the fun and frolic

of galloping bliss

is reserved for times

of stories and rhymes

with his princely child,

or that woman wild,

who can steal his heart

with a kiss.

CONCERNING COMPASSION

The turquoise sea flows up foaming to my feet.

Day after day, while it is today, it calls to me

to cease the island that has been my home

and wade into the warm waters

--that clear bath! All sea creatures

who are awake swim knowingly,

unbound in the limitless blanket of the sea

that is in all directions stitched unbrokenly.

These are the free creatures:

The red lobster dances out of his hole;

the blue and gold tropical fish

joyfully interweave in miraculous water patterns;

a small brown shark nuzzles the sand and is comforted;

the white dolphins are always laughing!

I must ease down into these waters!

Dark eyed natives on the beach scream out to me.

They are afraid I shall not return to them again.

The white foam caresses my ankles.

The light blue waters lap my loins.

The wet, warm embrace about my belly stuns me with peace.

As the flashing waters flood over my chest to cover my hair

I sense limitless music moving in wild currents.

It is the sea, the sea, the unbreakable sea!

ABOUT THAT WOMAN THE WHOLE DEAD WORLD FEARS

Maria lies in squalor,

big with child, panting;

sweat glistening upon her face and lips,

her muscles quivering, eyes huge.

Should a child be born into a cardboard house?

This one should!

Her cervix opens like the moon,

like the sun - and the killing child descends.

Water bursts out of the crevasse of her loins

into the arroyo of the world.

Flames lick in the water

and burn her whole house down!

Her flaming roof falls away

and the stars rush down upon her

to suckle at her large white breasts.

Her whole body tenses now like a hunting cat.

She arches up to look upon her loins

and shakes with pain and joy.

Her swelling opens like a bud.

She falls back upon the wet stones

and rests forever.

Her child breaks through singing.

The whole creation is in his voice.

The world dies!

GOLD WEAVERS IN THE MIRROR OF THE SUN

PART I. THE JOURNEY - DRINKING BLOOD

There is a revolution of Spirit needed!

Forgiveness! Grace! Justice! Order! Compassion!

Make your heart as clean as sea breeze.

Make your mind as clear as polished glass.

How? To the Holy things--lifewise!

This is a whole life's journey,

from the twisted gray labyrinth

to the mirror of the Sun.

But the juice, the red juice,

the warm red juice of God

pours into your mouth

and runs down your throat.

And you are fresh as a child

to leap through this journey!

*

The blood of God's Word

flowed through Christ's veins

and bled out in our world

to hover 'neath our brains.

*

Drink rivulets of cleansing blood

and find the royal son.

Drink deeply the sweet red blood

and be the radiant One,

the woman-child bride whose soul must sing

as her heart senses the King.

PART II. THE WORK - GOLD WEAVERS

*

"The whole creation labors together -

waiting, waiting, travailing in childbirth

groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God."

Paul of Tarsus

*

We are not envisioned as we are!

There are living ideas

inviolate in God's mind!

This God who sees dense, gray stones

to be as luculent as stars.

This God who sees that apple tree to be all afire

with the immanence of an inexplicable beauty.

Yet the tree is dying in time

for lack of some pure woven gold connection

to link it unbreakably to that clarity

which is deathless and older than the world.

*

See that man. He is a car salesman.

Yet God has made him to be a noble and just prince.

He has committed to him the golden threads.