Graced with the chance to be here,
Even if only fleetingly,
Embrace whatever comes your way
And, in so doing,
However enchanting
Any treasures you uncover
Might be,
Their loss should never be your concern.
In this matter
Make your heart your queen
And follow her as faithfully
And bravely as you are able,
Just as swelling fruit
Hurries towards its own sweetness,
Shine whilst you can,
Without fear,
For nothing is as inevitable
As it seems here.
No, not even the fissures
Of loss and decay
We are oft led to expect
In this temporal world.
For whilst we fuss and fudge
The lines we are given,
Above, below and all around us,
Lingers the energy of countless others
Who already know for sure
That, just as it was long, long ago,
When they first found themselves
Enraptured,
So it is for them, again and again…
And now with only a dark empty hollow,
A feeble space of earth left in between.
Such is true joy’s absolute certainty,
Its slow lit fuse that burns holes
In the shabby shroud of death forever.
(Reading of this poem also available on You Tube as part of WildSound Festival in California)
Along the way,
On this excursion of ours,
There is a need for measure,
An epicurean ability
Without which
The whole cavalcade
Is rendered no more than
A senseless orgy of beasts.
A greedy manic rush,
From room to room,
In the castle of your dreams.
So, each and every time
You are so visited,
Slowed and diverted
By selfless light and radiance,
Be sure to pause
And treat this happenstance
As the passing charm that it is.
Like the most precious
Of all hostages to keep safe,
To clasp close to your heart,
As you would a lover’s jewel.
To burnish
For just as long you can,
Before fate’s temporal denouement
Creeps in
And such joy is no more….
For such moments
Often melt away all too soon,
As if stolen from your soul,
Slipping through your fingers
Just as easily and prettily
As they were once found,
So fortuitously,
Like sparkling garnets in a stream
On the moated riverbed of life.
And, as any seeker,
However courageous,
Knows only too well,
An element of mishap
Is sometimes inevitable.
For the very capriciousness
Of the process is itself a mirror,
A key definer of the quality
Of the chances you are given.
And despite
Any such flux in fortune,
A material depth,
Not present before,
Gradually accrues,
As your burgeoning life,
With all its strands,
Its threads pulling together,
Slowly becomes
A marvellously rich book,
Steadily gathering folios and meaning.
So try your best
Neither to fret,
Nor be too ambitious
To ever notice such slips,
Because unexpected magic
Can often happen too,
Between such pages,
When, even briefly,
Disparate energies come together
That have never been aligned before.
And so bound,
Is the world illuminated,
Changed forever in an instant….
As the years slip by…
For every blissful balmy day,
That once, as a child,
Seemed so endless…
Now there’s a pace
And a harshness
In the weather
That it sometimes feels like
Was never there before.
And to think that
Every crease
In this kind landscape of ours
Was once a vibrant river of sorts,
Even if it was only the briefest,
Most ancient of glacial rushes
That caused the first scar.
And so it is also
On the terrain of the soul,
Where sprites can dance
So freely,
The dice are rolled
And energy bends time,
Making daylight of passion.
Though given
All this froth and ferment,
Perhaps discernment of risk,
Is a curse,
Or maybe it’s a blessing?
For much as it maybe
An uncomfortable truth,
That most of us
Would far rather renounce,
Together we all live every moment
On the very brink;
The razor’s edge
Of ecstasy or disaster.
But rarely meet either, of course…
That goes with the ticket though,
Doesn’t it?
The price of admission to so much:
The chance of such warmth on our skin,
As well as the sweet, sweet air
We suck into our lungs to cry.
Room to stretch, to grow, to dream…
Each of us orphans
On this dizzy sphere,
Initially cast adrift
Without a mooring point.
Even as infants,
We hunt intuitively
On the surface
Of the kind natural world,
That immediately enfolds us,
For divine connection
And it offers us just that,
Even if only fleetingly.
Weak as we are,
It’s not always possible
To hold station for long enough
To heal as we should.
But look how,
With all our hungers,
Our needs stretched
On the steely breeze of existence,
We do so love to feel
The warmth of safe harbour
Whenever we find it.
Here we can nuzzle,
Nestle for a while,
And feel safe enough
To open ourselves up,
As we need to,
In search of the key
To trials and experiences
That will make us whole again.
Summoning the compassion
To share the pain of others,
Or fearlessly becoming
The fiercest of lovers perhaps?
And how I long
For that abandonment again
More than anything else,
And the opportunity it offers,
With our gift of self,
To rouse something eternal
In the ascendant,
Impervious to all peril or decay.
A luminous shape
To forever call our own.
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