Month: October 2014

The sea yields us once more to these shores…

Pierre Mhanna2 Comments

“The sea yields us once more to these shores. We are but another wave of her waves. She sends us forth to sound her speech, but how shall we do so unless we break the symmetry of our heart on rock and sand?

“For this is the law of mariners and the sea: If you would freedom, you must needs turn to mist. The formless is for ever seeking form, even as the countless nebulae would become suns and moons; and we who have sought much and return now to this isle, rigid moulds, we must become mist once more and learn of the beginning. And what is there that shall live and rise unto the heights except it be broken unto passion and freedom?

“For ever shall we be in quest of the shores, that we may sing and be heard. But what of the wave that breaks where no ear shall hear? It is the unheard in us that nurses our deeper sorrow. Yet it is also the unheard which carves our soul to form and fashion our destiny.”

— Gibran Khalil Gibran, The Garden of the Prophet

Advertisement

Letter October 28, 2014

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment

Your dark hair, beloved—is it a river flowing amid the banks of eternity, carrying, in its surge, all the stars towards some hidden shore? Or is it an ocean of mist, a womb deeper than the night, one from whose invisible flesh all the stars are born? Which is it, I cannot decide. Yet by its surge I am carried; in the flick of its wind, born. And this, each minute, each second, right into the timeless sphere that binds me to your core; binds me as a ray of sunlight issues from the source.

Free Verse # 247 (hecatomb of desire)

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment

Reaping my sighs
on the altar on her absence,
sharp the moon’s sickle
in the sea of dawn.

~

Hecatomb of desire,
caught in her scent
a thousand flowers
melting to the floor.

~

The sea at dawn,
a peaceful child
lulled on the bosom
of his tender mother.

~

In the garden
where silence
is flower and fruit
for her I wait,
my heart against her lips
weeping to be the dawning sun,
the cup of sacred wine.

~

Dawn’s breathless shiver,
upon my cheeks
the dew of silence.

~

Wielding your breath
as though it were a flame
you burned all my poems
then into the ash wept
a sacred tear and lo!
my heart in dawn’s sky
a secret garden.

~

Under his fingers
her skin quivered
as the surface of the sea,
leaving him drenched
in salt and foam
and a yearning to sail
for eternity.

~

Drenched in his breath
the layers of her heart
he slowly peeled,
revealing the silence
vibrant at the core
of fluxing life.

~

The gray of dawn was an ashen cloak beneath which she hid a thousand burning suns.

~

Thirsting for your sea ~ my dewdrop heart.

On Rebirth

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment
The king said: ‘He who is born, Nagasena, does he remain the same or become another?’
‘Neither the same nor another.’
‘Give me an illustration.’
‘Now what do you think, O king? You were once a baby, a tender thing, and small in size, lying flat on your back. Was that the same as you who are now grown up?’
‘No.
That child was one, I am another.’
‘If you are not that child, it will follow that you have had neither mother nor father, no! nor teacher. You cannot have been taught either learning, or behaviour, or wisdom. What, great king! is the mother of the embryo in the second stage, or the third, or the fourth? Is the mother of the baby a different person from the mother of the grown-up man? Is the
person who goes to school one, and the same when he has finished his schooling another? Is it one who commits a crime, another who is punished by having his hands and feet cut off?’
‘Certainly not. But what would you, Sir, say to that?’
The Elder replied: ‘I should say that I am the same person, now I am grown up, as I was when I was a tender tiny baby, flat on my back. For all these states are included in one by means of this body.’
‘Give me an illustration.’
‘Suppose a man, O king, were to light a lamp, would it burn the night through?’
‘Yes, it might do so.’
‘Now, is it the same flame that burns in the first watch of t
he night, Sir, and in the
second?’
‘No.’
‘Or the same that burns in the second watch and in the third?’
‘No.’
‘Then is there one lamp in the first watch, and another in the second, and another in the
third?’
‘No. The light comes from the same lamp all the night through.’
‘Just so, O king, is the continuity of a person or thing maintained. One comes into being, another passes away; and the rebirth is, as it were, simultaneous. Thus neither as the same nor as another does a man go on to the last phase of his self-consciousness.’
‘Give me a further illustration.’
‘It is like milk, which when once taken from the cow, turns, after a lapse of time, first to curds, and then from curds to butter, and then from butter to ghee. Now would it be right to say that the milk was the same thing as the curds, or the butter, or the ghee?’
‘Certainly not; but they are produced out of it.’
‘Just so, O king, is the continuity of the person or thing maintained. One comes into being, another passes away; and the rebirth is, as it were, simultaneous. Thus neither as the same nor as another does a man go on to the last phase of his self-consciousness.’
‘Well put, Nagasena!’
— King Milinda and Nagasena, a Buddhist monk

Free Verse # 246 (enwombed by her dawn)

Pierre MhannaLeave a comment

Silence
touching her
becomes a fire,
along her skin
a thousand dawns
burning all at once.

~

Dawn, the silence in my heart a riot whispering her name.

~

Soft
as a cloud stroking the sky
her breath in my veins

~

Poetry, this silent breath pervading my heart.

~

The ashen face of silence,
to grow like a flower
enwombed by her dawn.

~

No more words to carry my silence to the shores of your dawn.

~

The silence
in my veins tracing
a hidden path
home

~

This silent window
between your heart and mine
has crumbled
to become the dawn sky