Time

A second is but

A rhythmic chime

Reminding us of

The flow of time

 

A journey from

Then to now to then

An answer to every

Question of when

 

Time is the power

That allows us to see

Who we were

And what we’ve come to be

 

On its path

We inevitably come to find

All that we must

Eventually leave behind

 

And how is it

That we must meet our time?

Is this moment new

Or a continuing rhyme?

 

Must I be faithful to memory

Or have faith in the unknown?

Must I invest my time

Or borrow it like a loan?

 

Is a stack of moments

The sum of my life?

Or is life an expanse

Which is in moments, rife?

 

Must I use its power

To meet my destiny?

Must I move from

Smallness to immensity?

 

Such are the questions

This morning to me has brought

The currents of time

Draw a line with a dot

 

It’s this artistry, this design

That is so fascinating

The observance of time

Is the art of man-making.

The Inward Journey

It takes many lifetimes

To see the true

And to make distinct the false.

The journey is brutal

But cloaked in an embrace of kindness.

I have been tricked

And deceived by my own mind

That didn’t know any better

I have encountered almost everything

That I feared or dreaded

Only to find that they were imposters

It was my courage that was true.

I’ve sought refuge and direction

In books written by the wise

But have come to see

That in times of need

It was my naïveté that saved me.

I have pursued riches in words and wealth

And realised that true power

Lies in silence and emptiness.

I have sought to fulfil myself through desires

And understood that true fulfilment

Cannot be contained in a begging bowl.

Dignity is not a sophisticated dress you wear

It’s an air you breathe…

One that is not polluted

By the garbage in your mind.

An air that isn’t confined to an edifice.

But moves about freely in an unfettered space…

 

It takes many lifetimes to see

That Truth never leaves your side

And that the False can never stay.

 

Why are you keeping it a secret?

From whom should my secret be a secret

When all is me…?

(In that I have faith

But knowledge is still to dawn).

My breath enlivens my whole body

But my appreciation of this fact is partial.

How do I feel it in every muscle, every nerve, every cell?

How do I see its immanence?

I attempt to watch the essence

And grapple with my darkness

And in that I hear a  voice speak:

“I know you’re secretly looking for me

But why are you keeping it a secret?”

 

It’s In My Nature

It’s in my nature

to want to know

to choose to ignore

to unconditionally accept and love.

 

It’s  in my nature

to consolidate patterns into identities

frame experiences with knowledge

and compare the meaningful with the meaningless.

 

It’s in my nature

to write time as a document

of my ideas and my memories

…of the quality of my presence.

 

 

Knowledge is Faith

The only thing I know for certain

Is that I’m a partial being.

 

I fly with one wing

And yet a higher knowledge

Tells me that

Such a thing is impossible…

 

Then why can’t I see or feel

My other wing?

 

What else

Does this higher knowledge know?

How do I come to know

What it knows?

 

Why am I numb

To its existence?

 

I contemplate this Higher Knowledge

And I come to see Silence…

Words lose their voice

Their sounds dim into the distance.

 

I stand detached, dismembered

From the thoughts that were my breath

 

I now understand

That it’s their charm

I must reject

And their stories I must exit

 

I must do this knowingly

In the faith that I have another wing…

 

I will continue to fly.

Heartbeats

To see that separateness is an illusion

And that we are the heartbeats of a single heart

See first

The joys and sorrows of others

What does their joy look like?

What is the face their sorrow wears?

You’ll see that their joys and sorrows

Are not different from your own…

And when there, please wonder

About our kinship and when it got lost…

I stopped sharing with you my feelings

And you stopped telling me yours

We speak through media and professional actors

Our own voices silenced in favour of

Sophisticated soliloquies.

The everyday has become a spectacle in the theatre

Which we have begun to dress up for

(so that we may look like we deserve the expensive seats)

In a simulated space, we cry simulated tears and

Smile simulated smiles…

We pretend that what entertains us

Also connects us

After all,

We live in a pseudo world

Where we are ‘informed’ that we are connected

But our frozen expressions

And gagged voices

Need the warmth of a listening heart

Before they can melt in human tears

I know for sure

That your tears and my tears

Have the same salty taste.

Lost and Found

We are all in a sense blind

Without insight.

Understanding doesn’t follow the rhythm

Of day and night

And its own dawn comes after

Many troubled nights.

I walk on the earth

A soul tormented

By thoughts that are the machinations

Of an untruthful mind.

I know that I need saving

But don’t know who else can save me

But me…

This is the first time

I stand face to no-face

Challenging myself

To speak my truth

Or remain forever silent.

This is the first time

I wish to see myself defeated

By a higher truth.

For in that I know

Lies my return to a place that

I’m trying to create for myself

In an imaginary world.

My hands join in prayer

And a tear rolls down my cheek

Today I pray for silence

So that I may rest

And so that no thought

Can come in between me and myself.

Unpacking

It’s not about you

There is no ‘you’

There are only circumstances

So that desires may act

And through action

Be liberated from binding thought

 

But who do these desires belong to?

…They belong to me

‘Me’ is only a thought

A rather persistent one

It’s actually a misnomer…

There is no ‘me;’ but there is ‘am-ness.’

 

Sound, space and light

In their tireless play create

A world of forms, words and meanings

And become the experiences

That ‘am-ness’

Describes as ‘mine’

 

In repeatedly describing experiences as ‘mine’

It condenses into an identity

A limited being

Perpetually longing

For an abundance

That pretentious language has hidden away.

 

You and I

Can trace our ancestry to thought

The remnants of an inaccurate language

That didn’t have the words

To describe

The indescribable.

 

 

 

Reminder

I know you see me live

And ask of me all that I can give

But I’ve always wondered why

We don’t see each other die

Things often taken a turn

When the last remains burn

So easily we let go

Of all unworthy sorrow

And see clearly through moist eyes

That death  claims us…

 

Long before we actually die.