Knowing

Trying

Sitting in the park at lunchtime,
rocking in the grass and sunshine…
If people wonder what I'm doing,
I should tell them that I'm praying;

Or, more truthfully, I'm trying…

Trying to find words to say
to get the healing flow to come,
to pull the life-force from the ground,
to call down beauty from the sky.

Trying to obtain the power
to take the colors of the flowers
and the fragrance of the pines
into a few poetic lines.

Trying to invoke the God
within the hidden heart of things;
to lift them up as offerings;
I'm trying to hear angels sing…

To See

I am trying so hard to see
and to live from that part of me
which is kin to everything.

But before I can even start,
I know I must somehow touch the heart,
the common secret truth of things.

Painful, that awakening…
The healing of this eye takes years;
is not accomplished without tears.

Tears to melt the separateness,
the many walls built up between us;
melt the hardness, wet the dryness.

Sad it is; but don't you know
that rain-washed windows
much better-reveal the soul?

Mercy

I go and visit the church down the street
on this morning of the Nativity;
for the Holy Child has a hold on me,
with or without "Christianity";
and so does the virgin mother Mary…

I sit down beside her shadowed alcove,
warm within the candleglow,
following the liturgy.
The pastor gives a homily
on how it must have been for Mary…
How that night had begun a nightmare,
scared and far away from home,
taking refuge in the shadows,
so vulnerable, so alone,
with only her young husband near.
But when the holy Light appeared,
she forgot the grief and tears
for joy for what was born to us…

And thus, he said, with all of us
here in this valley of the shadow
where the lurking dragons roam.
But when the light of morning comes,
and we can see what's really there,
all of the shadows disappear,
the apparitions of our fear.
--The love of God is always there,
mercies ever-new, unceasing,
dawning bright with every morning.

I step into the open air;
the Virgin is still waiting there,
marbled visage pure and white
radiant with morning light,
face so open, sweet, and mild;
I have to stop and gaze awhile.

Gentle Mother, look upon me,
take me to your heart and wash me
in the waters of your mercy,
your blue and endless purity.
And may your beloved Child
somehow yet be born in me.

Wayfarer's Chapel

Like these emerald hills now sparkling clean,
let me be washed in torrents of rain.
Let holy sun-fire purge me within
as these aching muscles labor and strain
up the long hill grades into the sky
where feathered angels hover and fly
over the silvery face of the sea.
Breathe new breath of life into me
as I climb the stairway sheltered in pines
to the garden overlooking the cliffs,
jagged dark and surging with foam.

And let me enter the chapel alone,
to lean once on the clean white stone;
to touch the warm red wood of the beams,
to sense the surrounding peace of the trees,
redwood, oak, and pine all around me;
to see the play of light in their leaves,
to feel the kiss of warmth on my eyes,
and the cooling touch of the ocean breeze.

Let me gaze on the flashing mineral springs,
and hear the trickling fountains sing;
drink of its cleansing, healing flow
there in the speckled light and shadow.
Hide me within the shaded enclosure
amidst green fronds and small white flowers.
Let me find that place in the heart
where there is welcoming peace and shelter;
the rest for which I have striven to enter,
the waiting arms for which I have hungered…
Let me be home at last.

Lay Me Down

Lay me down in newborn grass;
let the fleeting moments pass.
Let me feel the healing rays
falling warm upon my face,
sunlight soaking through my skin.
So may you come and enter in.
Let me stay here, safe and warm
in the shelter in your arms.

Found

Morning mist drifts over me,
a cooling breeze blows over me,
a sparrow sings songs over me,
the warmth of dawn breaks over me…

So does your healing presence surround me,
so is your beauty wrapped all around me;
so has your love finally found me,
so has your love finally found me.

To Walk

Soaring trees and skies of blue,
such joy to walk this path with you,
to walk this sacred land with you.
To find myself already home;
the freedom that it is to know
the destination in the going.
Waking in eternity,
I'll know that you were here with me,
beside me all along;
My life,
my love,
my song.

Knowing

Knowing is not of the mind;
but when I look inside, I find
that I know these things quite well,
more than written word can tell:

It begins to dawn on me,
sitting in the morning sun,
lost within a reverie,
that this is how true knowing comes:

It falls like sunlight on the skin,
like a warm and rushing wind
bearing fragrances of spring,
waking sleeping memory;

It comes like music to the ears,
enabling the heart to hear
the great and hidden harmonies
which lie behind the world we see.

It strikes upon the inner eye
as a face once known and loved;
a vision of one's native land,
or a brighter land above;

A sense that I am not alone,
although I've wandered far from home…
I feel it deep within my bones:
I know because I, too, am known.

New Beatitudes

Blessed it is to enter in
to the space within another's skin;
to know the heart of God in them.

Blessed are they who have the key
to the secret openingss,
the soft and hidden heart of things.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for they shall see
beauty.

The Simple Things

The simple things that I remember
from the days when I was smaller
and nearer to the ground:
The neighborhood where I was seven,
going on eleven;
the sidewalk cracks where my wheels would clack,
the tall green stalks of the hollyhocks,
their trumpet bells full of bumblebees;
empty lots waist-high with weeds,
dandelions with gossamer seeds,
silvery parachutes floating on sunbeams;
the three-leafed clover with purple flower
(I'd crawl for an hour, looking for four);
the rocky bluffs and borderlands
where we'd catch garter snakes in cans
to take back home to mom
and watch her scream...
Swift rubber soles bouncing on concrete,
the trees and houses on the street
where I'd daily walk to school;
the wind in my hair, my lungs full of air,
the sun on my skin.....it was enough then,
all one could want. Or so I thought,
until we were told, until we were taught
that the world is really "out there" somewhere.
I'd always thought that it was right here
and now, these things I made my own,
my universe, my home.

Timeless Days

Timeless days beneath a rolling sun,
swinging a hoe from rising to setting,
busting hard weed-sod acre by acre,
piling compost and planting seedlings.

No calendars here, no clocks or schedules;
I live by the rhythm of sun, earth, and sky.
My beard grows long and my coveralls are coated
with the tan dry dust that flies from the ground
with every rhythmic strike of the hoe,
marking my days; my meditation.

I live as within a Van Gogh landscape,
wheatfields washed in bright yellow sunlight;
sowing in rhythmic rows of flame,
swirling from furrow to blue horizon.

What's being accomplished, I'm not given to know;
the work is enough, and my life flowing freely.
The seed is good and the sun will be faithful.

Clothed in Glory

Walking through the mapled mansions
of my Father's house
so elegantly clothed
in my Mother's beauty,
raiments of glory,
red, gold, and green,
the colors of autumn
lit with golden beams
pouring from above
like the endless love
which creates and sustains
all of these;
raining down through the leaves
now spangled like stars
upon the diamond-breeze;
the glorious show,
this fine interplay
of sunlight and shadow
unto infinity,
heart of the Mystery...
Lead me yet deeper
and I will follow.

One

I feel your presence, I know your embrace
in the cooling touch of seabreeze,
in the sun warm on my face,
in these many green voices,
birds and healing leaves.

All around and through me,
throbbing love,
pulsing life,
golden energy,
boundless.

Now I look for you no longer
in the separate,
the solid,
the many,

But in the
One
enfolding
Beauty.