I don’t know.
One day to the next, like a weathervane.
Today, I think I’m a Zen renunciate.
Tomorrow, I’ll be a poet again
Mad with life and singing in the fields.
The day after that?
I don’t know.
Yesterday, deepening into memory,
Swimming in the Goddess water.
Today, spiralling out in bright colours,
An explosion of Self everywhere.
Who is in there?
Who is in there?
What is your name?
I’ve been Tom, Tani, Coyopa.
Hirons, Alexander, a King – all of them.
Slept rough on concrete,
Buried my head in the woods.
Known my wings,
Felt the fluid centre of my brain.
One day, I’ll get it.
Before then, I’ll give up getting it.
Who is in there?
Great nameless madness of wonder;
Crushing gravity of Soul.
This morning the sun was warm on my skin.
First time since Winter began.
I was delirious with pleasure
And hope flew round me, dancing!
The wind changed and the clouds came over:
Now it’s icey cold again.
Buddhist, Taoist, Sufi, Christian.
Muslim, Atheist, Heathen.
Jew, Zoroastrian, Heretic.
Red, yellow, black, brown, white.
It makes no difference.
That first touch of Spring
Will make you mad for life.
If you don’t laugh with joy,
You’re already half-dead.
You dropped by for lunch
I had a hunch
you had something to say
so I took a strool
and ah yes you did !
searching through the days
for the beauty that is life
embrace it daily
sometimes it’s hard to hold
but baske is its sunrise
and never your soul shall be cold
lovely
thanks for coming for lunch
Thank you, June! Yes – the embraced beauty cannot be held, as you say, but that’s part of the journey, eh?
Letting it all rest in beauty, just as it is…
T
This piece is an eloquent homage to the preeminence of mutability within oneself. It seems you are familiar with Gautama’s doctrine of ‘Anatta’. Most of the time, I also try writing my poetry from that void center.
“Great nameless madness of wonder;
Crushing gravity of Soul.”
It’s all good but those lines in particular stuck out at me. Fine work my friend.
Namaste!
Thank you, Obsidian Eagle!
I have outrageously flirted awhile with Buddhism, it’s true… Sometimes I write from the ‘void center’ and sometimes from the end of the branches. Sometimes it’s prayer and sometimes it’s song. Part of my job seems to be to express both the one and the many and the varying places in between and beyond as we slice up this pie that is not pie… And to not get caught in any of them as the Whole Story. I stand in amazement and say what I can.
Namaste to you too!
Beautifully expressed.
Life breathes a man, And he is.