Poems

Before the Coming of the Light

Before the coming of the light
There is the waiting
Waiting
There are no shadows in the night
There is dreaming
Dreaming
So we walk before the dawn
Where there is no beginning
We walk within the darkness
Where there is no ending
We look before the seeing
We prepare before the finding
We know not what we are looking for
We know only we are people seeking
Seeking to see
The sight of awe
That we hope is there
When the light is shining

We tell stories we sing songs
Of what will be the great wonderful
It’s that for which our heart longs
It is the space that is missing the word
It is the music that is missing the chord
It is the plus that covers the minus
It is the goal we are impelled toward
Do we feel incomplete
Because we have it not
How could we miss it
If we had not
The space for it to fill
So we long for the light
To lead us there
To where it lies

For this our mind waits
For this our spirit vibrates
For this out being contemplates
We seek the light
We seek not because we know
Where it lies
We seek to let it know
That we are seeking it
For when it comes
It comes with a sense of right
As if it waited not
But sought us out
As if it knew
We were there
Wandering about
Looking for a light
In a very light place

Poems

Early morning in Ottawa

Walking along beside empty roads
With bedroom eyes just lit
By the morning light
And by the smile on another’s lips
Then hand in hand
Then arms about each other
Cool air blowing up the city canal
There by a glass door
Not yet opened to the day
Sitting on a garden bench
With an Indian brave bronzed
Bow drawn tight arrow aimed
Frozen there in memory forgotten
Of help given to save newcomers
From an unknown winter
Too harsh for survival
Welcomed as visitors
Not recognized yet
As conquerors and takers of the land
There he crouches
Before the glass citadel
To a commerce not to be joined
And there sit two new visitors
In the early morning city
Feeling privileged to be there
Feeling welcomed by this city
Knowing that like all cities
In its history lies glory and shame
In its daily life
People strive to build
A nation strong
More welcoming and caring perhaps
Than in some times gone by
Seeking ways to build a home

Poems

The Call of the Mountains

There are mountains
Blue in the far distance
Calling
There are forests
Living between here and there
Promising
Here are wandering roads
Marking the way of many journeys
Beckoning

And what do you say my friend
My fellow traveller
Where should we go
How should we go
Why should we go

Is it any better
There than here
Is the hardship of travel
Any less than the travails of home
Is the time spent travelling
Fuller than the time spent here

Questions and questions
With answers mostly hidden
In the mists of life

Why then do we ask them
Is the meal
Eaten at home
Not filling

If we answer them not
Will they depart
And leave us to enjoy
The pleasures of this place

May we turn our backs
And let life
Hide the questions
And let our days
Fill to the full
The measure of our time

And yet
The mountains still call

Seeking the Essence

The Shape of Things

The shape of water
Is flow
For it moves through space
With no angularity

The shape of wind
Is suction
For it pushes
Only when it is pulled
Travels many ways
But always up

The shape of a mountain
Is cooling
For in rising
It avoids becoming
A river

The shape of light
Is expansion
For through this
It avoids
Arriving

The shape of mind
Is production
For it manages
The theatre of life

The shape of meaning
Is reality
For without it
There is none

The shape of the I
Is continuity
For it is a wraith
That links
The done
To the doing
To the to be done

The shape of speaking
Is breathing meaning
Forming wind
Into a gift

The shape of listening
Is participation
For without being involved
You are dead in the world

The shape of work
Is change
Without it
Nothing grows

The shape of the brain
Is building
The world
And its
Relationships

The shape of the heart
Is survival
For without
Food air water
There is no life

The shape of loyalty
Is separation
For it is cohesion
That creates
The in
And
The out

Shape of travelling
Is loss
For the destination
Too often
Overwhelms
The quality
Of the journey

The shape of play
Is liberation
For the rules and goals
Are there
Only to provide
The field
For freedom and fun

Seeking the Essence

As the Tree Falls in the Forest

Naked Touch
The hand balled up unfolds
Baby eyes stare at the unknown
And know it not
The mother reaches out from the darkness
Hand slowly, hand slowly
To the moment of meeting
Skin to skin; finger to finger
The first contact
A moment of love
Naked touch
One who knows
But greets a stranger
One who does not know
But encounters the other
A memory not of mind
But of flesh

Pure Contact
Is a meeting
With no meaning
An event?
An event of no consequence?
Is it the primary event?
The first and last pure encounter
At-one-ment

Knowing the Loss
Is the search for that moment
The source of religion
Of our hunt for God
The cause of our own sense
Of being incomplete
That which makes us
Eternally alone
The first experiencing of experience
The first experience of experiencing
Gives to us; takes from us
The joy of intimacy
Yet never more than closeness

Hidden Intimacy
Gone is that state
Of being the other
Lost behind the awareness
Of the other
Buried under a landslide
Of processes
Of feeder, of cleaner,
Of teacher, of punisher,
Of protector, of persecutor
The source of the good
That which denies us the good
Our guide, our frustrator,
Our Mother, our mother
That touch; that moment
Just knowing the other
Both togetherness and
The breaking of symmetry
The moment
Of the Birth of the World
When the sound is known
Before anyone is there
As the tree falls in the forest

The Ultimate Separation
When the crowd is there
Everyone hears the sounds
Of life’s happening
We hug one another
And say hello
Across the distance
Between us
And in our togetherness
Is our loneliness
In our deepest intimacy
Lies the space
Of ultimate separation
That allows with no connection
Action without compassion
Rendering the other asunder
In callousness and equanimity

Seeking a Way Home
Yet too it calls to us
To stretch across the divide
Challenges us to be
The greatest we can be
Not loving but empathetic
And to seek a way home
Beneath all that
Which divides us
To that first touch
Not one to one
Just

Poems

Stardown

We are children of dark origins
Our substance formed
In flames of death
And separation
Carried out
On the final wave
Of a cataclysm
Of destruction
Of an intimacy
Too close to bear

Are we all tainted
Scarred in physical memory
Lodged deep within
Our very cells
By such dark beginnings
Do we fume and hate
Fear, fight, or flee
For anything more
Than a fearsome rage
Roiling in an awareness
Of an intimacy lost
An intimacy ineluctable
An intimacy intolerable
Burnt
Transformed
Blown away
By love inescapable
By love unsustainable