Quintessence Of Dust
[With a nod to the Bard]
We are the moving dust,
we are the breathing dust,
we are the seeing dust,
we are the living dust.
But how, you ask, and rightly
so, can dust fall asleep,
dreaming of places unknown
and lovers unmet—how can
dust imagine whole worlds
and love with one heart for
60 winters and 60 summers?
And do the notes that stir life
come also from dust, just a
little dust, and nothing more?
When the music is played
and dust dances with dust,
and dust laughs with dust,
and soon dust loves dust,
can dust ever understand
the paradox of its own
being, from dust to dust?
Not until the winds comes,
the warm winds of Eternity,
will dust be blown away,
leaving the unseen soul
alive, to walk and breathe
and dance and love, bathed
forever in the dustless Light.
A Child And Eternity
When I was a child
Eternity scared me—
I was terrified when
I thought of it—a long
Line never ending,
On and on and on
It went till my mind
Felt like taffy being
Pulled through space.
Somehow I knew it
Was real, Eternity, so I
Lacked the mercy of
Doubt to ease me,
To lessen my fear of
That endless road—
(And now I know some
Grown-ups see it so, an
Unending line of time…)
But now I think time is
More like a ball, past
And present and future
Roll around together—
We call it a ‘moment’
In our world of clocks
And schedules to keep:
But that moment, that
Ghost called time, is just
Eternity visiting the world.
For I Can Hear Life
When our once young selves
turn stale
And old and old and old,
then,
in that beauty
I still see,
I can hear life--
I can hear life
as it calls out
its love song,
its plaintive plea
to my ageless soul….
And when Death makes
its awkward entrance,
my soul--
sudden cut adrift
from its moorings--
will carry that beauty,
that beauty of a life lived,
with all its loves,
with all its joy
and all its sadness
to the next world,
to the next beautiful dream.
Existing Without Time
Imagine …
that you exist without time,
that days and months and years
mean nothing to you,
nor do centuries or millennia or even
eons--
an entire universe of time,
some 14 billion years
means little more than a fly
alighting on your nose--
because you know--
you know time is not real
and every moment you exist
weighs more than eternity itself,
because you exist always, endlessly,
without ever beginning-- yes,
you always have been…
and always will be,
you are the moment and
the moment is you,
that is your soul--
what you call time
can no more be grasped
than a hand can grasp hold of…
air.
When Flowers Die
When flowers
die,
They die
slowly—
Edge by edge
The petals
curl,
Still,
silently,
Without
complaint.
Unlike us,
Cut flowers
Should be let
go
Before the
first
Tinge of death,
While they are
Yet radiant in
Deepest colour.
We, however,
Must stay alive
Long, long past
Our first
bloom—
Till we have
Crinkled and
Brutishly
browned
With excess
time.
Yet we have
what
Flowers have
not:
Our love for
them
Dies with them.
Our love for
our
Beloved blooms,
More
resplendent
With long
years—
Lasting past
the fading,
Lasting past
even death.
Echoes Of God
I sometimes find myself
listening for God’s footsteps
as He treads softly, oh, ever
so softly round about me….
I sometimes find myself wanting
to shake God’s hand, gently, lest
my own hand is crushed ….
I sometimes find myself wanting
to give Him a big bear hug,
wrapping my arms around the
endless warmth of Divinity…
I sometimes find myself wanting
to talk with God, to have a most
pleasant and low-key chat about
the meaning of life and death….
But I can’t, I know: how could
anyone survive touching God?
It would be safer to climb a
high-tension pole and reach out
and put my bare hands on the wire
as 50,000 volts course through
my body and my soul is expelled.
It’s just… my longing for Him,
to hear, to feel, to touch, to see
the Lord of All the Worlds….
I suppose I should be happy just
hearing the echoes of God in
the rhythm of rain or the songs
of birds or the giggles of kids
as they play in their own world.
And I am happy to hear His echoes.
When An Old Man Dreams
When an old man dreams,
he never dreams his age--
for only in his dreams can
he become young again
and so he dreams freely
sailing through the world,
carelessly, wantonly even,
for he is young again and
the young fear nothing
except the immediate.
I dreamt last night I was
a young man and moved
through the world as
though I owned it-- I
drove my car like some
immortal fool and went
to a party where I was
the center of my own
attention—and when I
saw a beautiful woman
with her eyes on me,
yes, only me, I went
to her and wrapped her
taut body in my arms
as we kissed a long,
long kiss, lips meshed,
and with eyes closed
we ignored the tiny
world gathered about
us as the soft pleasure
spread to our souls …
I can’t wait to sleep
and dream… to sleep
and dream...to sleep
and dream….
I Too Wanna Live
I come on the wind, or in a jet if I must,
for distances, borders, mean nothing to
me--
I will infect you and turn you into dust
wherever you may flee, for I am a world
traveller,
after all, you see….
And I am arbitrary--so fickle!
Some of you I will kill, but most I’ll just
make ill,
my thrill!
I’m invisible to your eye, and I don’t care
much
if you wail, or just sigh--I have to live
too,
don’t I?
So fear what you can’t see, for that is
me--
your pride got too big so my ma, Nature,
is gonna make you dig: for a cure, for a
hope,
or else for a grave. Now don’t be a dope,
you ain’t no gods, don’t fight the odds--
you wanna live, and so do I.
a poem is just a tease,
a hint, a slight pull
of the soul as it arches
towards a memory,
like a cool breeze of
early fresh autumn
or the wave of life
in a piece of music
that you love--
no poem can stand
in place of life but
a good poem may
make you recall
its beauty….
The Face Of The Buddha
They haunt me still.
The little children
laughing,
Always laughing.
The women voluptuous,
Languid,
Their movement an invitation.
Even the traffic policeman,
Crisp, clean in uniform,
Moving with ballerina grace
As hordes of cyclos and
mopeds
And the occasional
automobile
Pirouette endlessly about
him,
Impatient bees made
quiescent
By surreal beauty of
white-gloved arms
Cutting through thick tropical air.
Everywhere was grace,
gentleness—
Temples incandescent at
dawn,
With ant trails of orange-robed
monks
Cradling their pot-belly
begging bowls.
The patient women standing
by the road
To lump rice into the
begging bowls,
The monks always staring
blankly ahead
Until the women bowed low
in reverence,
Grateful their gift of life was taken.
And how wondrous it was,
An accident in the street,
yet no anger, no bile—
Forgiveness, felt before
thought,
Thought before uttered.
How could such a people
murder,
No not murder—slaughter!
Their mothers, fathers,
aunts, uncles,
Teachers, priests, friends
and children too.
Change temples of peace
Into charnel houses?
Schools of knowledge
Into abattoirs?
They photographed every
butchered lamb,
Like the devil’s children
on holiday,
And decorated the classroom
walls,
A show-and-tell of horror
and despair.
Why? Why?
Why such pain on such
gentle people?
Why did God hide His face
While the world turned its back?
Thirty, forty, fifty years
and still—
Still they haunt me.
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