Of ETHER And EARTH
Of ether and earth we are made,
not fully one or the other, and
so we always feel untethered,
ever restless, prone at times
to coming apart…
whole nations come apart,
what chance then have you
or I?
Our souls seek the air,
our bodies cling to earth.
We are never one or the
other, we are never at rest.
Some wait for death,
some wait for God….
A LETTER FROM GOD
Why are we so stupid, Lord?
Why do we yell and shout,
Rant and rave, pillage and kill?
Why do we cheat and lie,
Ignore and disdain,
Leave and abandon?
We could all be so close,
So loving, so kind.
After all—
We all share the same things:
The fresh air, the blue sky,
The moonlit nights.
We all have the same fears:
Loneliness and sickness,
Poverty and death.
We all hold fast
To the same hopes and dreams—
Friends and family of love, perhaps
Happy children whirling
Like small dervishes
In their own little worlds.
A bit of praise, a kind word,
Work that goes well.
I wrote this as a poem
But it is really a prayer.
I spoke it aloud so many times,
Even unto the thickest part
Of the blackest night
Until I fell into a deep sleep.
When I awoke the next morn,
The mail had come early.
I opened an envelope
That had no stamp.
Handwritten in unreal beauty,
It began quite formally:
‘Dear Mr. and my name,
I have broken my own rule
To write you, but you are
So very persistent!
If life were easy,
You would not feel alive.
If love were easy,
You would not value it.
And if I were easy,
You would never seek me.’
Faithfully yours,
God
A SECOND LETTER FROM GOD
I suppose I should have been satisfied
With the first letter—I mean, how
Often does the Almighty write to us?
Not since He did it on stone, I suppose.
But I am human and so rarely content—
Then too, I still had so many questions,
Like why must children suffer cruelty
Or deathly ills—and why are the aged
So oft forgotten, ignored, neglected?
Why do so many hunger for vengeance
While others thirst for a drop of love?
Before the act is always the thought—
So why do we lessen the other, turn
Him into an animal, some predator
To be feared and hunted to extinction?
And why do we peacock ourselves
With plumes of ego and pride, then
Go strutting into the world like
Petty kings, woodhearted queens?
And always, always, we are we less
Than we could be, sad thin shadows
Of that person we know could, and
Should walk free on the sun-lit earth?
I wrote this unmailed letter knowing
He would read the words before I
Could put them down—but I did
Not expect an answer-- so when I
Found another letter slipped under
My door, this too written in a hand
Of unearthly beauty, I gasped it with
Guilt and fear—was I too greedy,
Too foolish to want to know the
Mind of God: why He made us
The way we are, what He wants
From us, of us, for us? Now I
Began trembling, my heart
Pounding like it would burst.
Still,
I opened the letter and read—
I really am breaking all my own
Rules in writing you again, and
I’m not sure why—yes,
I don’t always know my
Own mind—I told you
You were made in my
Image. I suppose I am
Intrigued –the answers
You seek have been
Sought throughout
Time, ever really
Since I put that
Immortal part of you
In your ancestors,
And turned animal
Into human and
Instinct into choice.
I gave your species
Everything needed:
Reason, imagination,
Speech, and my
Greatest gift—love
Strong enough to
Transcend time.
And what did you
Humans do with
All these wonders?
You waged war
Endlessly and
Oppressed the
Weak, breaking
Them as though
They were clay
pots and not
My children….
I sent prophets
To warn you
To choose light
Before the dark
Ate your souls—
I even sent my
Only son to
Lead you home—
But you killed him.
And you wonder
Why life is hard?
Faithfully yours,
God
A SENSE OF GOD
It comes with the light,
Driving darkness to dust,
Breathing life into death,
Freeing all touched softly.
There is a way of seeing
Without eyes, hearing
Beyond human ears,
Smelling a rose before
Its seed is in the earth,
And touching a beating
Heart with unseen hands.
It takes no more than one
Drop of His blood to save
A world lost in madness.
TRANSCENDENCE
Transcendence
is eating a peach,
feeling the sun’s
rays on your neck,
seeing an old friend
after a long parting,
watching a movie
you love and have
seen more times
than you can recall,
calling your partner
in life to say I’ll be
home soon, soon,
hearing of the death
of the teacher who
gave air and light and
hunger to your mind,
remembering your
memories like
beloved dreams,
calling out to the Soul
who knows your soul,
writing a poem…and
reading a poem…
IMAGINE
Lennon wrote a beautiful song,
a poem really
(as all great songs are)
and asked us a simple thing:
to imagine a perfect world,
a world without war,
a world without hate,
a world with neither fear
nor greed nor hunger,
a world without evil.
And no need for religion
his poem sang, no God,
no Soul, no hell, and
no heaven as well
Nothing to kill for,
nothing to die for--
it all sounds so good,
this brotherhood of man,
this world of innocence.
No choices to make,
no need to struggle,
all will be perfect,
though death will
still end life and
extinction awaits all.
Except for the last bit,
it all sounds much as
you might imagine
Heaven to be….
Grasping Infinity
To pray to the Great Spirit
I cannot see…
to imagine living in worlds
I do not know…
to have feelings from
some other time and place…
to grasp with another hand
or taste with another tongue…
to be the woman
you make love to,
to feel your other body
come into you,
to feel the milk go out
of my breasts
and to be the babe suckling
in life’s early thirsting…
to experience the incomprehensible
as the simple, to know all
and yet laugh and cry--
would that be God,
or still a man
imagining?
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