Titles

The Intimation of Christ
Big Brother and Big Mother  
My Anger
The New Man
Narrative
Sometimes...
Sisyphus
Saving God
After A Thousand Incarnations
Make Room For the Miracle
Slowly The Time Body Returns To Light
Who?
Can I Trust You With My Heart?
Teacher
The New Theology
Sweet Apple, Tender Love
The Party That I'd Plan For You
Michael's Computer
She Was Gentle
Grief Was Stalking Me
Memorandum
The Constant Reminder of Unseen Things
Watching Poets On TV
They Do Not Sleep
Dear Robert And Cheryl
Not Drowning, But Waving
The Hymn Of The Stones
Master Of The Stones
Labyrinth Angel
Dear, You Are Here
After The End Of The War
Apocalypse
Playing Scrabble
Free
I Am One Whole
To The Angels
Little Pink Tourmaline
The Music Between Us
Time And Form
The Heart's Protest






 
The Intimation of Christ

I would never try to imitate You.
What would that achieve?
You have so much to bring that is new.

We could intimate You;
Listen, support one another,
Suggest a few things here and there,
Give a helping hand,
Encourage each other.
It’s common religious practice.

We may be brothers,
But I don’t think that means
We have to do the same things.
I love You.

I’m not trying to change the world
That’s Your job.
It’s my work to be at peace
With the changes.








Big Brother and Big Mother  (song—bouncy folk tune)

Big Brother and Big Mother
Are watching over you.
Big Brother and Big Mother 
See everything you do.
Big Mother loves you
With a heart that’s big and wide.
But if Big Brother is after you,
You better run and hide.







My Anger

My anger is like a neighbour
Who turns noisily,
Troubled and restless in his sleep.

He may awaken fully at any moment
And start banging on the walls.
Who does he blame?
What revenge does he seek?
There is nowhere I can go.

He does not care about the facts.
It does not matter if 
I call the police.
They will not understand my complaint.
But now he can only mutter 
And bothers no one else.

I often call to him through the wall.
Wake up! Wake up!
But he is not in his right mind
And can say nothing.
Perhaps he is sleepwalking now
Or having a nightmare.
I cannot tell.

The alarm that I feel is a 
Kind of foreboding,
Another layer of grief 
That must be exhumed.
When he fully wakes
Will he be silent, whole, and content?










The New Man

I would write a long poem
all about us,
our greatness,
how we inspire ourselves,
and what we have already overcome.

How we may now face death, 
but will succeed and triumph over our 
own ignorance and defeat.
Our community is coming together 
in new wholeness,
bringing about the New Man.
What was impossible is now dust.

I would convince you 
that we are the best learners
and Earth is the most perfect school.
We will soon have high marks in 
meaning and substance.

Please do not weep and say 
that we will not be able to turn ourselves back 
or laugh and say that 
our contempt for our selves is well deserved,
and our future is most bleak.
No, no, there is much about us that has not yet been written.

II

Living in an island in the universe
where fear dominates
we are pressed with hungers of every kind.
Yes, we seem like refugees from the spirit world 
begging to prosper in a strange land.

It is not indifference that is killing us.
Individually we are passionate enough
—talented in exploitation, survival, and renewal.
It’s the application of mutual benefit 
and concern that is lacking.

Of course there have been
too many wars!
Now they must be met head-on
with imagination and resolve,
A new imagination of who we are.

O—the silence of the many.
We cannot yet speak,
because we have not yet learned how.
What we call science and progress
Is a long way from where we once were,
but we are not yet fully engaged.
We have not married our resources
together for something higher.
Our Family of Man
has not yet met the Child
that we are to become.

III

Do not fear the Mother
who wishes to scold the Child!
If the Earth cracks and shakes and turns,
if we drown, or starve, or perish from thirst
it will be temporary.
Keep the heart of who we are 
for future generations.
Honour the Mother.

Who we are
has been kept secret until now.
The apocalypse has been slowly appearing.
Some believed it was initiated by freedom of speech.
Some thought it was the birth of farming, 
or the printing press, or the internet,
but the secret is the Child, the New Man.

It is not what you can point to or express.
I am running out of words, because I have 
too much to say:  Our wholeness is incomplete.

What does the Mother teach us?
As always, She is there for us,
newborns in the world,
to experience our own coming into being.
There cannot be too high a price for this.







Narrative

It’s all narrative,
Story, fiction, half-true.
Some mystics call it
A big lie, an illusion.

Our souls are y & r.
It’s not just passion that
Keeps us going
It’s engagement and curiosity and fascination.
We are constantly trying to explain
What is going on.

The causal series of events
The carousel that we call reality;
Our unhappy little merry-go-round
Is often only our random hypothesis.

The what cannot explain the how.
Appearance cannot explain being.
To return to the source 

For a moment
Is to know—but not to explain.

Don’t run away—hold back that thought.
Why are you so afraid of love?

When fear stops telling the story
The mind grows silent and the heart opens,
And the wheel of life stops turning
You around, and around, and around.









Sometimes...

It often seems the veil between the worlds
Is like a makeshift wall
Of bricks randomly shuffled into place.
At any moment it might twist and fall.

Each layer of bricks built upon the other.
Held together by time and vague intent.
Ordered chaos of hearts and minds fragmented,
Held loosely together, bound by consent.

Dying seems to have as much to do with it
As living.  Sun, water, soil, and seed
Have their own organic patterns
Of life and death, cycle and deed.

It’s not that it will topple at any minute.
Gravity will not fail any time soon.
It’s a veil, after all, not a fortress under siege.
It’s more like darkness at noon.

The darkness is not evident at all.
The shadows hide behind the things themselves.
The dark and light are all confused.
Heaven has made a pact with hell.

It seemed solid.  Evil appears real.
“Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us.”
My mind is reeling now.  Bricks fall.
I want to build a new house.

One that is less uniform and solid.
A veil that is not as well defended.
It may have a floor and roof and windows.
Maybe a mobile home with fenders.

I may want to separate myself
From the threat of a collapsing wall
Assembled by fear and anger and hesitation.
It may not be there at all.






Sisyphus

It’s a brief respite from tyranny.
For a moment I stand above the world,
The end of another day,
The stone and I on the top of the hill.

I am living out a myth.

It must be so.
Though I am not a fool like Sisyphus,
I cannot say no.

I do not want to live like him,
The hours passing unrequited,
Participating in the waking dream.
Co-operative—divided.

The boulder has begun to shrink a bit,
Its surface smooth and worn.
As I strain and twist
My soul is slowly being born.







Saving God

Hold still the hands of this old Clock,
Its mindless motion has lost heart.
Tic Toc. Tic Toc.
Wind them right back to the start.

Gather up the tired shards of Time.
Restore Creation’s birth.
Remember the First Design,
Before Heaven shattered and fell to Earth.

Remember the Morning Light
Before the Beginning’s waking hours.
When even the angels were not yet ripe
For adventures such as ours.

O—That happiness is come again,
For God will not remain alone!
We are like the stars and constellations
Kneeling down before His throne.

We ourselves must begin the new day.
As if we were starting over.
Not to leave Earth, but to stay
Here, in the moment, with Him forever.






Make Room For the Miracle

All my dreams are fallen,
Fallen to Earth,
Fallen from the tree of life,
Like spores from heaven.

We are made for times like this.
We were born to live these times,
In them, through them, with them.
We are meant to be here.

Heaven has no interest now in our excuse.
It is the Earth that needs us.
We are the seeds of heaven
Activated by these uncertain times.

The miracle that we need now
Is our capacity to love.
We were born to care deeply,
To toil in this garden.

The comfort that I’d hoped for
Left for the day.
My lazy heart

Wanted to go back to sleep.

Now reassurance comes in 
Like a bird flitting nearby,
That I invited
To enter into my soul.










After A Thousand Incarnations

After a thousand incarnations
I imagined myself free at last
My mundane body awakened with wisdom,
Mistakes forgotten, erased, and past.

After a thousand incarnations
I wanted a constant friend within myself,
Separate from the moment passing,
But a valiant knight, not a sleepy elf.

After a thousand incarnations
I look in the mirror each morning
Searching the reflection for myself,
Clearly the resolve is burning

After a thousand incarnations
To become the person that I am,
Hidden just below the surface
Underneath the indifference and the man

Who after a thousand incarnations
Appears a simpleton, a dunce.
As if he did not know any better.
As if he just showed up this once.

After a thousand incarnations
I might have gotten my act together
With bright armour and a shining sword.
I wouldn’t have to wonder where

After a thousand incarnations
I had stumbled and fallen,
Tripping through the dark,
Missing the cue, again.

After a thousand incarnations
It’s not as if all my time was spent
In pursuit of pleasure and the flesh
Or on the sidelines, awaiting punishment.

After a thousand incarnations
I have created a semblance of a self,
An often wide-awake version
Of a clown dressed up, amusing himself,
After a thousand incarnations,
Happy that he can put on a show:
A little help here; a little humour there;
A little magic on-the-go.

After a thousand incarnations
I can not turn back the clock.
Time is in a hurry these days.
The spirit pushes, refusing to walk.

After a thousand incarnations
We can now be shown
How to enter into life to
Meet the silent and unknown.

After a thousand incarnations
Of embracing happenstance
The spirit is ever-present
To dance, to dance.





Slowly The Time Body Returns To Light

When I witness a stone in my hand
A thousand wrongs become right.
My heart silently understands.
My body awakens with sight.

Love blossoms in full flower.
From its peace a thousand blessings flow.
Divinity holds me in its power,
And I know more than any words can know.







Who?

Who might have told me
That tenderness was an explanation,
Or that a gentle heart 
Was the wisest of the wise?
How could I have known 
About effortless patience,
Or love without any demands?
All my trials might have been without judgment,
All of my struggles only 
Kindness and play and service.
Who is that person—
That I sometimes know as myself?
Have I met him?
Do I understand?










Can I Trust You With My Heart?

If I give my heart to you
Will you give it back to me?
Will you change it in strange and unexpected ways?
Will we delight with surprise and astonishment?
Will we recognize ourselves?

When you give your heart to me
Will that unfamiliar trust amaze you?
Will that bold absence of requirement and measure
Suspend all time and intention,
And break you open wide?

And even if this is what we want,
Could we keep it to ourselves?
Would our secret and forbidden pact
Prove our separateness?
Would we be able to share our joy,
Our retreat from loneliness,
Our uncontrived passion and contentment?

If that perfect moment comes to us, 
While the past is silenced, 
And the future is fully embraced,
Will you still love me?
Will you know who I am?

As we enter this mystery together and separately,
This awareness beyond words,
Where knowing is only union,
Will you recognize me,
Familiar as I am?

Because my smallness frightens me,
And all seems precious and fragile and tender,
And each living thing so temporary and undefined,
And I am so uncertain
In this world, so large and unknown.







Teacher

I would like to teach humility,
But that is impossible.
I could teach resistance.
I could teach stubbornness.

I could teach willfulness, spite,
Irritation, annoyance, 
Contempt, disgust,
Anger, and disciplined selfishness.

I’ve shown promise (and creativity)
In the pretence of cooperation,
The appearance of goodwill,
And feigning compassion.

I could show you how to make
Self-justification work for you
No matter what the situation
That happens to be confronting you.

I have a gift for holding out,
For systematically saying no,
For denial,
and not giving in.

I’ve become a master at
“I couldn’t care less.”
“You can’t make me,”
And, “To hell with you!”

I would reveal working principles 
Of  behavioural intervention
And covert manipulation,
With convincing proofs and remarkable anecdotes.

I have good, all-round knowledge to share
About how to evade responsibility,
Getting away with doing the minimum,
And making others afraid to ask for help.

I  have constantly found new ways
To stonewall my own heart
Over many years of practice
With a quiet, unspoken arrogance.
So I am not really able to teach humility.
And I’m not that much good at repentance either
So you are pretty much on your own,
But I wish you well.







The New Theology

O—to remember our lost fragments of goodness,
The Eden that we once knew;
A paradise without dissatisfaction or complaint. 

Yet we have misunderstood.
Our weaknesses will not be undone.
We will always be in need of one another.

The new way is the way of wholeness,
Of mutual completion, and forgiveness,
A willingness, without clear direction or reward

Heaven can remain within our view,
Even as we are constantly recreating it.
It will never be fully imagined or measured.

All our tasks are voluntary.
Joy—not yearning, will become our entryway.
Without it we falter so easily.

O—to remember our lost fragments of goodness,
The Eden that we once were,
The heaven that we are.








Sweet Apple, Tender Love

Sweet apple from the garden
Sweet apple that fell
Sweet apple dividing souls
Narrowing heaven, widening hell.

Listening ear that bends toward us
Listening ear, quiet voice
Listening ear, silent whisper:
Time; fate; choice.

Tender love that wakens hearts
Tender love that knows
Tender love that enters into us,
Illuminating shadows.

Evening follows day
Day follows night
What emerges in-between?
Radiant silence, twilight.











The Party That I’d Plan For You	                   Feb. 11/11

I see the truck has pulled up.
It’s bringing the party supplies and the costumes.
It’s looks like El Dia de la Muerte and Valentine’s Day together.
Everyone is getting ready for the celebration.
It is a sad occasion, but we’re happy to be there.

People are dressed up like skeletons, and Grim Reapers.
A few are dressed like priests or nuns. Some like angels.
Some folks have chosen togas.
Others are just wearing their street clothes.

The Dixieland band is getting started, 
Slow, solemn, and mournful, but still upbeat.
The clowns have put on sad faces.
They are doing elegant improvised dances amidst the crowd,
Just to loosen people up and get them in the mood.

Elsewhere, Jesus is saying, 
‘Set another place at the table.’
No one is complaining there,
But it’s not what you would have expected.

The Buddha is wandering around,
Chuckling like the Dalai Lama.
He thinks the whole thing is funny.

Your friend Jim is finishing up your portrait.
He wants to show it to you, but I think 
That he made you look too young.

Even though you have had to wait so long,
Nobody seems to want to answer your questions.
They either pretend that you are still sleeping,
Or try to get you to join in the celebration.

Eventually, you ask someone, “Is this for me?”
—Though it all seems to make no sense.
I overhear, as I am coming toward you.
“Yes”, I say, “it’s for you!”








Michael’s Computer

Michael’s computer passed away last Tuesday.
Suddenly, of a failed hard drive.
The computer had provided Michael with 
Many years of selfless and dedicated service.

It will be remembered for its 
Careful final drafts of poems,
Its precise spreadsheets for the church,
And countless emails, searches, and downloads.

No funeral will be held.
In lieu of flowers the owner would appreciate any copies of 
Poems or financial documents he wrote in the last year
Be sent to michaelf.1@3web.net

She Was Gentle

Marching along the sidewalk with her crutches, 
Or marshalling her power chair through crowds
She hoped you wouldn’t jostle her or get in her way.
She was a force in motion, anxiously aware,
Yet she moved gently too.

Questions were how she fought or befriended you.
You had to be brave to answer.
She wanted to win you over, to make you pause,
To hear you, to make you confess,
But her arguments were gentle too.

When she was young, her brother would tease her
Just to make her giggle.
I liked to tell her funny things.
The nurse said she had a ferocious laugh.
But her laughter was gentle too.

She was relentlessly inquisitive.
She rarely stopped her threshing of thoughts.
How to separate the gleanings?
Her objectivity was demanding,
But her mind was gentle too.

She was socially vulnerable, prone to worry.
She’d watch you, and scrutinize your response.
She could be defensive, shrill, an open wound,
She wanted you to be gentle too.

She feared that God was a brute,
Arrogant, harsh, and indifferent,
Watching from His judgment seat.
She loved Christ,
But she wanted God to be gentle too.

She wanted to be loved,
And she was fierce in loving.
For her, love explained a lot
About the way the world should be,
And what it lacked,
But her loving was gentle too.


I could not turn her away.
She always wanted to give more.
I was often inconsiderate when I was young,
More focused on myself,
But she was gentle,
And she made me gentle too.

She saw Nature as an interconnected web,
Wondrous in its overall design,
Magnificent in its details.
Life is not always gentle,
But she was gentle,
That gentleness was hers.

March 19, 2011






Cats One to Four

Cat number one
Had lots of fun.
It once cornered a mouse
With one great pounce.

Cat number two,
He didn't trust you.
When worried or rankled
It bit on your ankles.

Cat number three,
She was very sweet.
Quiet and pretty,
She was a good kitty.

Cat number four,
We loved even more.
She always talked back,
The number four cat.







Grief Was Stalking Me

Grief was stalking me even before you died.
It would cut me off on the way to work,
Or suddenly show up in the mirror while I was shaving.
I declared a truce early on.
When I tentatively raised the white flag,
I could see its black flag waving in the distance

Grief cornered me when I was alone and defenceless.
It grabbed my attention when I watched the news.
It ran like a 24/7 infomercial:
'FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY'
It was not sneaky.
It was only telling the truth.

Grief knocked on my walls in the middle of the night
When I thought that it should be sleeping.
When I said, "We need to talk."
It replied, "There is nothing to say.
That is just the way it is."
Grief has been a strange companion.

When your death was approaching
Grief became more civil, more compassionate.
I wasn't expecting any kindness then.
It had my full attention.
There was no avoiding it anyway.

The day you died, grief softened.
It was tender then.
It knew you so sweetly.
Now I do not mind its interruptions.
I seek it out.
We talk about you.









Memo

To:       Mr. God

From:  Michael Ferrel, Union Representative

Date:   April 3, 2011

Re:       Change of Job Status
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬________________________________________________

The purpose of this memo is to notify You that Your job description is being modified.  During the ongoing transition period some of Your duties may be subject to change.  Your work as Executive Director and Creator of the Universe is gratefully acknowledged. We are pleased to inform You that You will continue to serve us in Your capacity as Supreme Being.  As before, You will be responsible for Research, Innovation, Engineering, and Development, as well as General Supervision and Implementation of the Divine Plan.

The anticipated changes are due to recent initiatives by groups of mortals who are requesting greater input in World Direction.

We will continue to keep You informed of any specifics, as they arise, particularly of any significant reorganization or structural changes.  

We gratefully appreciate Your cooperation in this matter,

Yours Truly, 

Michael Ferrel,
Union Representative









The Constant Reminder of Unseen Things

Untold orders of angels
Whisper against our misgivings,
While departed souls keep a vigil 
Reminding us of unseen things.

Perhaps they see the coming day
When the lion and the lamb will rest, at peace.
They witness light breaking through dark gray,
An unbridled love--at last, released.

We have been living in retrograde times,
The apocalypse foreshadowed, but still unperceived,
But the spirit that now transfigures our minds
Asks openly to be received.

We stumble forward immersed in our fears,
Yet forgiveness in surety will be fulfilled.
Like the sweet music of the dance of the spheres
A harmony will rise up over the tumult.

The being that lives in the heart of all things,
The primeval spirit uniting us all 
Tolls a bell that constantly rings,
An intimate trust, a most timely call.

We will be illumined by Grace,
In spirit reborn, though in Christ we die,
To see clearly, as if face to face
All we now sense, but can not see with our eyes.










Watching Poets On TV

Sometimes poets are inserted 
in-between commercials.
They have interesting faces.
The camera likes them.

They speak in small rooms, 
often coming from great distance to 
recite a handful of poems.

We watch the audience 
share the poet's trance.
They clap when each spell is over.

When the poet is sitting still,
the camera closes in 
and touches them.
You can almost take their pulse.

When they take the stage 
they gather momentum, pacing urgently,
or breathlessly drawing us in.

From the closet where we keep 
our useless and unused things,
they share disappointment and wonder.

What the poet brings
no factory can make,
and no one has offered for sale.

Sometimes the small screen makes 
them appear as large as they really are,
Away from the small rooms where they write.








They Do Not Sleep

I
Those who have died 
may remain close.
If we listen intently
we can hear them speak.

They may enter our thoughts,
announcing their presence
softly as a whisper.

We have removed 
ourselves from their world,
but they wait for us to join them.

II
The crystal beings, 
ever wakeful, also wait 
for us to discover their world.

To enter their deathless realms
is to relinquish superfluous desire
and share their joy.

They speak the forgotten 
languages of our soul,
a new vocabulary of the heart.

They abide in a mysterious heaven.
Can they help join us 
to those we thought have left?

They do not sleep or die.
Can they wake us 
to what is timeless and unborn?


III
We constantly hurry.
We do not understand waiting,
its purpose, its loving trust.

Yet this waiting is for us, 
weak and blindly distracted,
who daily thirst and hunger.

How to comprehend such forgiveness, 
such overflowing mercy, 
seemingly contained within a stone?

But we are the ones who rejected them.
We are the ones who are strange and unfamiliar.
We are the lonely ones.







The Hungry Ghost

During the 20th century consumer buffet
We became overshadowed by a hungry ghost.
We piled too many things on our plate.
Each of us wanted to have the most.

The Earth's riches had slept safely underground,
But then we began drilling wildly for ore.
We brought up great masses of whatever we found,
Then eagerly descended again for more.

The mind is easily enthralled.
It wants it all, and wants it now.
That is the problem with the Fall.
That is all it wants to know.

For decades I gambled on mining stocks
Hoping for a few grams in a tonne of ore.
They crush and spin and poison the rock,
Until the mine can give no more.

My mind in a way works like that,
Blindly forcing its way down the mine,
Until finding itself at the end of a shaft
It wants to break apart all it can find.

There is a sweet alchemy that tames the ghost,
The other spirit, that is easily bidden.
It seems above, the other below,
Though both are veiled and subtly hidden.

I now give thanks for each Dark Night,
The disenchantment within my soul,
The binding of my appetite,
The emptying out of what seemed full.









Dear Robert and Cheryl

It's hard being a spiritual teacher these days.
There is plenty of work to be done.
Whoever might be up to the job gets conscripted.

It means holding back and patiently waiting,
Sequestering the stockpile of  yesterday's wisdom,
While opening, improvising, and looking forward in time.

Allowing the present mystery to reveal itself,
Listening with attentive care to the present moment, 
To the future, and to the Great Wide World.

Sacrificing authority for unfamiliar territory,
Believing that the next generation
Will go much further.  God willing.

Accepting that no tradition proves you right,
Abandoning the tired redundancy of proof,
For the inspiration that may emerge as true.

Incarnation is hard work for everyone.
Restless trouble and pugnacious chaos
Are always looking to start a fight. 

We are all half-saints these days.
Moral perfection isn't possible,
But doing the Work is;

Helpful, compassionate interest,
Disciplined mindful observation,
And entering the quiet all-embracing heart.

Heaven remains a background score,
The pulse beneath the skin of time,
But you share its blessings.
Thank you both for continuing to serve,
For being Co-Workers, and accepting us as such.








Not Drowning, But Waving

Never a strong swimmer, caught in the undertow,
Your illness took its course.
Have you lost your fear of drowning now,
Having followed the river back to its source?

In the end you simply took on too much water,
Silently flooding and feeling adrift.
No starlit compass to guide you on later.
No way to measure the final risk.

We watched and helplessly waited
While you sank beneath the engulfing tide.
Your once-salvaged body abdicated.
Abandoned and left, it was washed aside.

But now I see you near a spectral waterfall,
Sometimes floating, sometimes wading.
The water does not bother you at all.
You are there in the distance, waving.




   



The Hymn of the Stones

Their spirit is a mystery,
A song that few have heard,
A chorus rising from the Earth,
Whole and high, and pure.

Each stone sings alone and perfect
In a symphony of jewels.
A hymn of many facets 
A song of sparkling hues.

The noble crystal amethyst
Hides an angel, gently singing,
And the blood-red stone, carnelian,
Veils the voice of spirit beings.

Who designed and fashioned them?
They answer His heart's command,
Praising divine glory,
Guided by His hand.

Agate, quartz, and tourmaline
Sing the wonders of His presence,
In Him, through Him, with Him,
United in one essence.








The Master of the Stones

Who was raised up from the ground,
All creation's cornerstone?
The Workman of the Earth.
The Master of the Stones.

Who prepared the new foundation
When the temple was to fall?
Who carries the weight of centuries
And answers to our desperate call?

Who in time descended
And entered deep within the Earth?
Who restrained the darkness
And purged it of its wrath?

He is the Master of the stones,
The arbiter of their gifts,
Shining in the crystal,
Hidden in the amethyst.

He is known by a thousand names,
But is ever one,
The Master of the stones,
The ever-radiant Son.









Labyrinth Angel

I might have been standing still
When the angel called me to dance,
This way, that way, all around
The circuit of the labyrinth.

Sometimes he stepped closely.
Sometimes he lagged behind.
Sometimes he was far away,
Then he'd come back, swing me around.

We all dance with angels,
Our partner round and round.
Dancing in a circle,
Pacing up and down.

Who knows where we're going?
Something he won't disclose.
Though standing in the centre,
I might claim to know.

But I never will step backward,
Even when I remember
The awkward distance we have travelled
Holding hands together.









Dear, You Are Here

I often visit heaven here,
Another country right next door.
Sometimes the gods come up to me
And introduce themselves.
I swear I have never met most of them before.

Some are princes, some are wisps.
One is dark and scruffy. 
He likes to live close to the ground.
I think he knows you.

I must be sharing my sorrow with you,
But I am not in any hell,
And I have learned in this life
How to keep my mind out of trouble.
Though I am sometimes treading water
I am not drowning.

So many times you kept me warm
When I might have isolated myself and frozen!
I watched the embers of your eyes darken
While your body turned cold last winter,
And the tumour put a spell on your tongue.

The stars here, 
They sparkle in the ground,
Not in the sky.
Each day we walk around a constellation,
Which was made with human hands.
Everything is different here
From what you would expect.

I am glad to share this heaven with you,
And I am willing too.
It's the willing that makes the difference,
Here in this new kind of heaven,
A kind of will you are familiar with,
A kind of will called love.







After the End of the War

Things were different after the war.
No one came to the services after a while.
There were some who might have wanted to,
But they could not find the will.

The church had been destroyed during the conflict,
Along with everything else.
The bombs had fallen, row after row,
And the fires took much of what was left.

People tried to hold a mass in the open air.
They were able to make a clearing.
They improvised something for  the chalice
And they were able to make a little bread.

But they could not bear that the icons were lost.
Only the blackened empty frames remained.
They reminded them of what had happened,
All the things they wanted to forget.

Of course they wanted to rebuild the church;
The sight of the rubble made them restless,
But the struggle to survive was overwhelming.
There seemed little time for beauty or for worship.

The devastation had changed them,
But the bitterness that they had felt during the fighting
Had been abandoned by most of them.
They recognized that their enmity had been misguided.

The feeling of regret was palpable, but unspeakable.
The loss of each person seemed identical,
Yet their grief was tinged with a kind of forgiveness.
Peace had become more necessary than anything else.

They could be happy sometimes,
Sharing a communal meal at sunset,
Or singing songs together in the darkness.
Sometimes they sang hymns by the fire.

They knew that God had witnessed what they'd done
And that the many dead were with them,
Sharing their newfound peace,
Celebrating the end of the war.

They knew that they could not go back
To who they were before the conflict.
They had lost their appetite for war,
And their conscience told them not to judge.

Then one day, while salvaging, they found an icon.
The frame had splintered,
But it was mostly intact.
It was astonishing, unbelievable.

Many people wept through that first service,
That they held together with the icon.
They overcame their feeling of numbness,
And began to grieve, to deeply grieve.







Apocalypse

The Great Conversation in which all may speak
The Great Work in which all can participate and contribute
The Great Classroom in which all can teach and all can learn
The Great Remembering through which we will come to our senses
The Great Forgiveness in which all can have mercy.
The Great Reckoning by which profit and loss are erased
The Great Forgetfulness as our attention and care go out to each other
The Great Door of Salvation that opens and invites everyone in.
The Great Alchemical Fire that purifies through sacrifice 
The Great Tree of Life that is forever sprouting green
The Great Raft which can carry all lost beings home
The Great Journey that finds its destination 
The Great Healing of time and loss and sickness.
The Great Secret that is whispered and disclosed.
The Great Annunciation by which all are called 
The Great Resurrection in which death becomes a celebration
The Great Communion in which all becomes the bread and wine.









Playing Scrabble

Games involving gambling and risk
Didn't interest you in the least,
So we didn't play board games much.
To you, pulling a surprise card or rolling the dice 
Seemed a pointless waste of time.

Though others often found them enthralling,
Building hotel empires or sinking battleships
Was not something that you liked to do.

Scrabble was your favourite game.
You could take it seriously.
It meant taking command of those small letters
In order to create a strategic position,
And baffle and impress your opponent.

But that game never really appealed to me.
Having a large vocabulary, 
It just meant frustration for me.
What I could express with those tiny wooden blocks
Just made me feel helpless, and often bored.

My father was a master player.
Of course, he knew all the rules and their exceptions.
It was almost like he was cheating.
I played him sometimes, but rarely won,
But I enjoyed seeing him get so excited.

Perhaps he is with you now.
(Though you never talked much in life)
You probably have some new interests in common
Besides me, and my restless, uneven life.

Perhaps you sometimes hear my prayers,
Or my thoughts assembling on a page.
Trying out different combinations of words and feelings,
Trusting that the right one will come along to complete a line.

You knew the force of words.
Always asking people questions,
Trying to get them to open up.
So we put aside our games and contests.
They only distracted us from each other
And the conversation that we always wanted to have.








Free        Melody from 'Creep', by Radiohead

I'm trying to meet
Whoever you are
Whoever I am
That we've become so far.

You're like a mirror
That I enter into
Below the surface
Of whoever I am

When I'm free
There is nowhere to go
I belong here 
I feel we belong here

I'm trying to merge
The inner and outer
My heart and my senses
The world and the soul.
I want to notice
All that's around me,
But sometimes I shut down
When I don't even want to.

When I'm free
There is nowhere to go
I belong here
I feel we belong here,.

I've come a long way
Just to be near you
It doesn't matter
If you're not perfect.
Whenever I'm free 
I can actually see you
As you are
And you're beautiful.








I Am One Whole

Some selves I have met only recently.
A few within me remain strangers.
Others constantly knock on the door,
and some secret themselves in dark depths

Truly, I am not removed from myself, 
I only pretend to be.
All of my faults and idiosyncrasies 
wait to be absolved.
What is lacking is their reception.
What is holy has no calling card.

I am always starting over.
It is the best practice and my dearest hope.
I was unsuccessful in so many things 
that I did not even think to undertake.

I am turning 56 next week.
I have accomplished more than I set out to do.
Clearly this was necessary.
Thank you All for your help.







To The Angels

You who watch over us, 
Can you help us remember who we are?
For a long time we seemed indifferent to our fate.

Not knowing that we might be led.
We made blind and incremental steps, 
Without any notion of the distance required.

We were exhausted by pointless efforts, 
By our fluctuation and haste, constantly 
Trying to recreate infinite small pleasures.

We broke acknowledgements with you,
And became incoherent to ourselves.
Much still remains outside our fearful boundaries.

Do you regret that we fail to hope?  
That we perceive danger everywhere,
Yet allow such disorder and unseemliness?

We have dishonoured ourselves long enough.
Soon we will lift our veils.
Is it not time to remove all masks?

Fate took us for fools,
But you did not accept our sightlessness,
Continually working toward our emancipation.

You have prepared us for freedom.
All obstacles and difficulties were only 
To help us to train on the goal.
 
Once, we did not know that we had a will,
Or what its true vocation was,
Our wisdom tarnished by lack of use.

But the time of regret is over.
Our shadowed tasks will soon brighten
And illuminate all that we do.

Here at the stark crossroads of time
Our choices will culminate in change.
Lamentation can have no purpose now.

We may feel anger for a time, 
Bitter over naive pretences of the past..
Yet soon we will rejoice, startled by new perceptions.

How well you have hidden yourselves!
For millennia we have gone without a proper mirror.
Now, we will be able to see ourselves through you!

Our science has only been a child's toy.
Yet soon each thing will be newly catalogued in spirit.
Light will find its way into every corner.

Why were we constantly repeating our mistakes?
Compassion was always our greatest deficit.
We now must seek clemency with each other.

We were distracted by indulgence and misfortune,
By the confines of our own thoughts,
Always preoccupied with immediate concerns.

Now, when our need for Grace is urgent,
You finally show us our true nature,
Calling us to new tasks and to celebration.

Divine Hospitality is constantly changing guise.
We are being invited to strange new worlds.
Hidden doorways are being opened.

Thoughts now sprout in our hearts like seeds
Allowing us to conceive of mysteries 
Buried beneath the surface of time and sense.

Our loving attention is required.
Our response must be as unconditional
And reciprocal as the invitation.

We can remember the whole 
While listening in silence,
Discovering strange new laws.

We will accept and give thanks,
healing and sharing together,
Preparing ourselves to begin anew.

Grace pours down upon us like a steady rain,
Coming to alert, yet also to pacify.
Do not be afraid!

All is brightening.
We see by first light, but many still sleep.
The world of the many and the few must end.

Each of us has been sorely restrained.
We defaulted on ownership of ourselves.
Now we must turn to you, our intercessors.

You can make clear our common path.
We are coming to a marvellous fruition,
Radiated by the sweetness of innermost being.

We are called to be dutiful mystics.
If we had but a flake of your vigilance
We would have wings with which to fly.

Without your overt guidance and support.
Life proceeded with dullness.
Now a litany of joy has been unbound.

Now reason must topple.
It has no faith, no substance.
It must become transubstantiated.

We will make way for a chastening of the senses
And a cleansing of the heart,
As you assist us in our awakening.

We are to be a new incarnation,
United with the Earth,
Reconciled with each other.

We lost so much through separateness.
Our feeling mostly of pleasure or pain.
Now we will learn impartial feeling.

Pain and pleasure will only explain our desires,
Learning what we fear, 
And what will satisfy us.

Feeling will unite, not divide us.
And will and reason
Will follow.










Little Pink Tourmaline

Yesterday I lost my little rock. 
It had fallen from my pocket.
I've been looking all around.
It's lying somewhere on the ground.

It's a pastel rosy pink.
A pretty stone, don't you think?
But, I don't have it now to show.
I'm sad to see it go.

Each day I'd stop and rest my mind
Upon my little tourmaline.
At first it gave me quite a start
To feel it gently hold my heart.

I felt love from head to toe!
What surprise! I did not know
How a stone could touch the distant stars
And the darkness in my heart.

It held me in its radiant sphere
A warm embrace, close and dear.
Such great depth of feeling!
Such a quiet, soulful healing.

I will miss my precious stone.
If you find it, bring it home.










The Music Between Us

The music between us
Is not distant from the world.
It enters into us.
We are its instruments.

I hear our song everywhere.
A celebration of our life together
One life almost past,
One still living.

I sense you in the darkness
Between the night stars,
And hear you humming out the key
For me to follow and join in.

I did not lose you.
No, I found you again.
The tune that I thought I'd forgotten
Keeps coming back to mind.









Time & Form

Have we been deceived by our minds?
It is time which is fantastic and impossible.
We believe that things simply happen,
And that they are.

Time continually surprises.
It is magical that something can occur,
And pass, and perhaps begin again,
Taking a different course.

Time is difficult to prove.
We have only supposition and memory.

Time is a symphony of our errors and mistakes
Woven into an orchestration and
Played back for our senses to enjoy.

Time is for us to be together, 
To meet and part and move and dance,
And meet again.

When the music stops, 
And the chair is missing
We fear--How will we continue!
Oh--but the music never stops.
We only think it does.








The Heart's Protest 

Oh, how strains the weary heart,
Carrying forward the weight of Earth,
Pressing on in fits and starts,
Yearning to fulfill its worth.

Yet when bound by hostile fate,
Unable to release its tether,
The heart may refuse to wait,
For relief, seemingly forever.

Suddenly it may decide to stop
And tilt or shift its load,
Or in protest, it may let drop
Parts of its burden along the road.

Yes, the heart may pause.
Its courage will sometimes yield.
Though it follows no common laws,
Slowly the world is healed.

For the heart loves reconciliation,
And wants to make amends.
It can forgive the starkest violation.
Witness what tragedies it often befriends!

The soul is no stranger to adversity
--Sometimes the only world it knows.
Its heart compassion and diversity,
Its love in all the ways it grows.