On the backs of seahorses' eyes
Page 20
I fell in love, never-ending love,
more times than I could count!
"Only you...and you alone..."
Only is just a four letter word.
(Besides, who's counting?)
At first, we believe it's the Other we love.
Then we discover the Other lives inside of us,
and it's a great mystery, a great mystery indeed,
how specific the ones we love show up,
just in time,
to take us from certainty into not-knowing,
from death into life.
It's a great mistake, but a mistake we make,
to assume you are who you think you are.
Let us now praise famous poets
But what are the poets to us?
All seven million!
What is history, yours and mine,
and all that's gone and left its mark
upon this earth,
when everything changes,
when everything comes to an end,
even time;
when you and I are no longer
you and I?
So many intersections on the road,
so many choices.
Or so it appears.
But do we really have a choice
other than to choose who we are
becoming?
And who we are becoming,
is that not the Great Unknown?
Why should it matter then to us—
to you and me,
who are bounded by time and space?
(If we are bounded by time and space.)
Why does it matter if we maintain order,
rather than give in to chaos,
when we do not even know what we are,
or what this is all around us:
the cosmos, a tree, a beloved pet
that will follow you out the door
no matter where you're going?
But it does matter, doesn't' it?
So don't even think that you know who I am,
or what a poem is,
or a tree, or the cosmos.
Don't even think that I know
what is
and what is not true.
Or who I am becoming.
And that's why this tale is a jest,
a koan,
a fast ball with a curve.
Here I am. Or am I not?
Late thoughts
Where did the morning go?
2011-2012
Look closely, old poet, look closely into your hands
for in your hands you will see
the lights of home.
Look deeply, old poet, into the eyes of those you love
and into the heart of all that is.
§
All so vague:
In autumn the reasons why
All fall
away
And there's just this
Inexplicable sadness.
—Saigyō , Mirror For the Moon, 12th c.
trans. William R. LaFleur
§
He had no address;
he lived in a ball of dust
playing with the universe.
Ancient Sanskrit Manuscript / Essential Zen
In between, I am becoming
"Both...and..."
In between spirit and matter,
I am becoming.
In between good and evil,
between this and that,
I am becoming.
In between left and right,
above and below,
darkness and light,
I am becoming.
In between day and night,
pleasure and pain,
heaven and earth,
time and space,
I am becoming.
In between fire and water,
earth and air,
instinct and civilization,
feeling and intellect,
kindness and cruelty,
I am becoming
In between war and peace,
male and female,
duality and oneness,
law and mercy,
synthesis and analysis,
divine and human,
I am becoming.
I could go on.
Or not.
In between fear and love,
desire and thought,
I am becoming.
In between ignorance and knowledge,
I am becoming.
(All ignorance is ignorance of self;
all knowledge is knowledge of self.)
In between the crack of the worlds,
I am becoming.
I am becoming who I am.
I am becoming to you.
We're here or we're not
We exist in a black and white world,
in essence—
we're here or we're not here.
Each moment, we make a single choice:
Yes? No?
We breathe in; we breathe out.
But even the human heart sometimes
skips a beat.
We live, these everyday lives,
these lives of love
and lives of fear denying love,
on the edge of light,
in a world of shadows,
a world of grays,
a world of differences, slight and major;
a world of measurements and degrees,
like the weather, like greatness.
We're here or we're not here.
A door opens; a door closes.
The same door: you.
10,000 years from now
Think,
(if you will),
1,000 years from now,
or, if you prefer,
10,000 years from this time,
from the moment you no longer
live on this earth,
you no longer exist in a body,
where will you be,
10,000 years from now?
Where are your ambitions,
your aspirations,
your prized recognitions,
your personal accomplishments:
all those things you loved and prized,
where are they,
10,000 years from now?
Once you're dead,
you're dead forever.
Unless, of course, you're not.
If you're not,
if you're not dead,
if you've only left a body,
a personality, a life, a memory,
a relationship, a secret,
behind you,
where are you?
What do you believe?
Say you believe
in the Christian scriptures;
or the Muslim;
or the Buddhist—
if belief determines your fate,
does that not mean, not
the particulates of your belief,
but the very belief itself,
does this determine your afterlife?
(If there is an afterlife
or no afterlife—
does that depend on
what you believe?)
If you don't believe in an afterlife,
does your life just disappear?
You just vanish, all that you are
and all that you might have become?
Tell me, which belief gives you
what you truly want?
(Since we face the Unknown,
not knowing
what is and what isn't?
Or is that simply my belief?
Do we really know, for sure,
what lies beyond?)
Oh, come on,
don't monkey mind me,
or chatter me up
with what you've read
(in all the books you've read),
or twitter what you've heard,
or what you've been told;
but tell me,
from all
your experiences,
what do you know?
What belief gives you freedom?
Or unlimitedness?
Or hope?
What belief makes you despair?
(Hope springs eternally from the roots
of despair and desire.)
What belief gives you what you most desire?
Why are we here?
Why are we here?
On this earth, this planet?
We come up with so many reasons,
do we not?
We're just here,
no questions asked.
Just seek pleasure and avoid pain.
A fair enough but limited philosophy.
We're here to learn lessons.
Many spiritual people believe this.
We're here to worship the gods;
to service the king's pleasure;
or to deny ourselves and live for what comes after.
Believe me, like the Ancient Greek thinkers,
I'm at a loss to explain what all this is,
this that is;
where we come from, why we're here,
and where we're going.
We can always make up a likely story,
just as we've done for thousands of years.
Ramtha, a master teacher,
once said to a group of seekers,
myself included:
"You're here because you want to be here!"
Desire...this great outreaching
for something—
this continuous seeking to gather knowledge
or experiences or power,
fame or immortality, profit or prophesies,
everything you can name under the sun,
and this thing, this elusive thing
that cannot be named—
how this life force has been religiously discouraged,
even downright condemned, throughout the ages!
To desire not to desire—
Is this the path to liberation?
From what? From desire?
From sticky emotions?
From suffering?
From the angst of who and what we are?
This world we live in
How the earth came to be,
do we know?
God? The Big Bang?
(If there's no one to hear,
can there really be a bang?
If no mirrors exist, can God exist?)
Perhaps the world came to be,
as Einstein may well have believed,
through a creative moving force
far beyond our historical concepts of God
and time and space?
It is what it is becoming,
what more can we honestly say?
But the world, this grand contraption,
the world we live in, this
we have created,
together,
this and all the many worlds we may live in:
all things beautiful and grotesque,
all things sinful and terrifying,
all things we measure with our human mind.
This world we live in,
this
we create moment by moment.
Out of what?
Out of the raw possibilities of spirit?
Out of the great unknown?
Out of you, whoever you are?
As if you had never been alive
To our Great Unknown Mother-Father,
who lives inside each of us
To be born and to die,
and never to be recognized
for who and what you are,
as if you had never been alive!
To travel through time and space,
to arrive by bus, by train, by boat
or ship, or spaceship even,
to arrive in a place
and never to be seen and known
for who you are,
as if you had never been alive!
A friend passes away, a close friend;
a hundred years comes and goes,
as do you,
both of you forgotten,
as if you had never been alive!
To just disappear...
In countries all over the world, every day
this goes on,
as if you had never been alive!
In time,
4.5 billion years from now,
our Sun will explode in a mighty
nuclear orgasm,
vaporizing this blue gem Earth.
If that doesn't wipe us out,
they say, in time,
another billion years or so,
our Milky Way Galaxy will collide
with the Andromeda Galaxy.
But you and I, we will be long gone
before then,
as if we had never been born!
To be here on this Earth,
to come face to face
with the mystifying Unknown,
and to not awaken, my friend,
to who you are,
as if you had never been alive,
do not allow this to happen!
O Great Mother-Father:
the life-forming Love that lives
within each of us:
the Light within all stars:
the Dark Energy in all matter:
the Intelligence in all structures:
the Will in my individual will:
the Consciousness in each moment:
the Gravity that holds us in place,
or destroys us:
I pray,
do not let this happen to your children,
do not let us disappear,
as if we had never been alive!
As long as the fires keep burning
Is it gold? Is it brass?
So hard to tell in this light!
—David Pendarus
"In the shadow land of famous poets"
Let me count the poets.
No, no, their numbers, like the stars,
overpower my ability to calculate!
A swarm of egos, these wasters of words,
posturing and buzzing in the night,
pestering both time and history,
stealing everything in sight
(like the poets before them).
Like children, they are:
"Look at me, look at me!"
Timid souls, these poets,
who protect the sand they're playing on.
Some, like good bureaucrats or factory workers,
these poets go into work each day, every day,
to write their immortal poems,
the way literary professors, writing classes,
and other poets have told them how it's done.
Still others, not so timid or obedient,
(you know who you are),
turn over earth and spirit to form rock
and marbled monuments,
some even plowing fresh ground.
Others, gasping for hidden truths,
like fish riding a bicycle for the first time,
venture into subterranean passages,
long buried by the veneer
of religion, politics and social graves.
A few, fascinated by the light,
leap into the darkness—
a darkness,
where,
only a moment ago,
there burned a bright flame.
We praise those fragmented souls,
longing for wholeness,
who walk with eyes wide shut into the fire,
a fire that consumes all that is false within them.
As long as the fires keep burning,
as long as we keep the human spirit alive
on this Earth,
does it matter who?
Does it matter who keeps the fire burning?
Gravity always wins,
and a dog,
they say,
is never wrong
> Or,
Watch out for that falling apple!
1
Cheers for the Three Graces:
hydrogen, gravity, and time.
Dark matter holds everything together,
the scientists tell us.
Or is it the gray matter of not knowing?
2
The dragons of doubt must be resolved,
abandoned and vanquished,
not by warring with yourself
but by picking up the other end of the stick,
by letting go attractions to your hidden doubts
and allowing what you truly want—
not in some distant future
but in this moment, here, now.
3
Once upon a time I looked so young.
Now I look so old.
Have you noticed that we don't see space?
We can only see objects in space:
a stone in the middle of the road,
a falling leaf, a closed door, a star in the night sky,
a seahorse in sea grass,
a kitchen wall, the sun and moon, a face,
a disaster on the road.
And time?
Love, has no sides,
no directions, no polarity.
Let your existence speak for love.
4
Spiritual vampires, you might call them.
They go to church, to the mosque, to the temple.
They practice meditation,
they feed on the blood—
the life force—
of Jesus, of Mohammed, of Buddha.
What do you feed on?
5
Put a man and a woman together and soon,
all too soon,
like an electrical cord in the garage,
or Christmas lights from the year before,
they're tangled up in knots.
Love has no object, no Other.
Yet, in this, our human embodiment,