Endless Song

I withered and dried up
into an autumn song of leaves.

Through the desolate earth
I heard my lover’s voice rising,
a wind passing through my ribs
and whispering,
“Good, Good.”

From the gray sky a lightning fell,
striking my body into a wild flame.

I burned,
as through the desolate earth
my voice kept crackling and howling,
a fiery breath reaching the far horizon
and returning,
an echo in the chest of my beloved,
“Good, Good.”

The cold wind blew and rain fell
scattering my remnants far and wide.

No self, I woke,
a light jumping from eye to eye,
bird and air, fish and ocean,
a dancing flame between form and form
melting boundary and heart and soul,
dissolving every face, colour, and movement
into one face, light, and stillness,
and sitting with beggars
before the steps of the temple,
a quivering gift from their empty palms,
a heart empty,
filled with love.

I listened,
and silence was an endless song.

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Animal Energies

Midnight,
A studded cloak of stars
Covers the whole sky.

Just before dawn,
The eye opens
And the sun,
Moving somewhere at the edge
Just below the ground,
Gives a foretaste of light;
The unseen threads
Of darkness
Weaving the cloak of stars
Come undone
As the stars come falling,
Myriads together
Like clusters of flowers
In an unexpected spring shower,
Cold dewdrops
Shivering in the last breath of night
And weeping through the body,
Through the overheated pores
Now engulfed in coolness and sobriety,
Animal energies
Divulging river sentience
And lake serenity
Snuggled and coursing
In the great ocean,
Rising in the silence of the heart
To meet the whitening face of the sky
At the moment of birthing light.

Night comes out naked,
Dancing like a nymph in the valley,
And at that moment you see
Both light and darkness
Interweaved in the hidden face.

Way of Heart

Living the way of the Heart,
Desert dunes rush and crash like waves
As they swallow the moon;

A white flower blossoms
In the temple of grace,
Her light, her scent, her presence
Spilling out, out into open space –
A sun within the world set upon it,
A white hawk at the helm of the sky,
An Eye breathing as it paints
Profusion of mystic colours.

A Fire Burns in the Loaf of Bread

When your stomach sighs and groans
coursing through your body a river of fire,
stand up
and let this bubbling music
carry you ever so gently
to the burning loaf
in the womb of the sky.

Now eat and sink your teeth in,
but eat not with your mouth
or with your thinking mind,
rather, with half-shut eyes
open, listen to your stomach
and let her passion
from the deep well rise
to the mouth of your mouth;
ah! I can see your relaxed
and joyful features as well as
the firmness and presence
in your every motion and gesture.

The sun knows this too and has seen you for look
brighter and brighter she now shines
and her light and heat
I see and feel emanating
from deep within your heart;
ah! beauty is now frothing
at the edge of this great tide
and hands from everywhere
extend to cup the foam
of this white wine.

The sun I now hear,
passionate and calm she sings
and her rays falling on the ear
of flower and bird,
water and rock,
leaf and animal,
awaken the whole world
and sing it into
the warm suppleness of life.