Saturday, March 25, 2006
A Poem, a Synchronicity
During this recent time of transition, I have written very little poetry. However, the other night, several poems "appeared" unexpectedly. Here is one:
Snug in Their Nests
The "Post Moderns,"
snug in their nests
of assured denial,
know for certain
that nothing is real,
nor holds together the way
we have so long
supposed.
Mental Buddhists,
they swear
that all which seems to be
is merely fabrication
of the mind,
a mirage of intellect
which convinces
until we tear off
the outer veil
to uncover
our own reflected
image
held within.
The dancing yogis,
on the other hand,
dispense with questioning.
They tell us there is something
very, very real,
whose qualities cannot be
weighed or measured
nor captured
by words and constructs,
nor is it just an image
which flickers from
the fire.
To find it,
we must first
drop all this knowing,
let all our mental
convolutions
fall away,
until we ourselves
go falling
into that well
which some call nirvana,
others bliss of union.
For them,
body alone
can offer proof--
not the outer shell,
but the delicate, subtle inner web
threaded by god,
which sustains us,
makes us who we are.
This pulsing net confirms,
through its own
shimmering currents of joy,
how the god/goddess
infuses everything
and so claims us
as Her own.
It is not required
to postulate
nor circumscribe,
to poke
and turn things
inside out...
All you must do
is let it happen
all within,
give way to
final discovery,
come into the bliss
of the real.
Then, this morning, I happened to open a copy of the "Ten Principal Upanishads" (Yeats and Shree Purohit Swami), and found this passage (I have modified the pronouns to make the selection more inclusive):
The Self is not known through discourse, splitting of hairs, learning however great; She comes to the one She loves; takes that one's body for Her own.
And this morning, I wrote this poem, about the one who yearns to be so taken:
Snowfall on a Sleeping Forest
Speak to me
of desire.
Tell me how it is
to want
to be wanted
until your guts
turn inside out,
your heart freezes
in something like pain,
something akin
to snowfall
on a sleeping forest.
Prepare
for endless nights
of waiting,
waking up, trembling,
like a half-frightened,
half-expectant lover
calling, "Who is there?"
These are, of course, universal thoughts--that reality is known not by thinking but by the recognition of the inner self, and that the sacred, when it comes, takes possession of who we are, so that we and it become one being.
All those who have tasted kundalini know these truths quite well.
Snug in Their Nests
The "Post Moderns,"
snug in their nests
of assured denial,
know for certain
that nothing is real,
nor holds together the way
we have so long
supposed.
Mental Buddhists,
they swear
that all which seems to be
is merely fabrication
of the mind,
a mirage of intellect
which convinces
until we tear off
the outer veil
to uncover
our own reflected
image
held within.
The dancing yogis,
on the other hand,
dispense with questioning.
They tell us there is something
very, very real,
whose qualities cannot be
weighed or measured
nor captured
by words and constructs,
nor is it just an image
which flickers from
the fire.
To find it,
we must first
drop all this knowing,
let all our mental
convolutions
fall away,
until we ourselves
go falling
into that well
which some call nirvana,
others bliss of union.
For them,
body alone
can offer proof--
not the outer shell,
but the delicate, subtle inner web
threaded by god,
which sustains us,
makes us who we are.
This pulsing net confirms,
through its own
shimmering currents of joy,
how the god/goddess
infuses everything
and so claims us
as Her own.
It is not required
to postulate
nor circumscribe,
to poke
and turn things
inside out...
All you must do
is let it happen
all within,
give way to
final discovery,
come into the bliss
of the real.
Then, this morning, I happened to open a copy of the "Ten Principal Upanishads" (Yeats and Shree Purohit Swami), and found this passage (I have modified the pronouns to make the selection more inclusive):
The Self is not known through discourse, splitting of hairs, learning however great; She comes to the one She loves; takes that one's body for Her own.
And this morning, I wrote this poem, about the one who yearns to be so taken:
Snowfall on a Sleeping Forest
Speak to me
of desire.
Tell me how it is
to want
to be wanted
until your guts
turn inside out,
your heart freezes
in something like pain,
something akin
to snowfall
on a sleeping forest.
Prepare
for endless nights
of waiting,
waking up, trembling,
like a half-frightened,
half-expectant lover
calling, "Who is there?"
These are, of course, universal thoughts--that reality is known not by thinking but by the recognition of the inner self, and that the sacred, when it comes, takes possession of who we are, so that we and it become one being.
All those who have tasted kundalini know these truths quite well.
