Vol. 2. / 193.) It Was All In Being In My Being

It was all in being in my being

What it is that’s happening there

It wasn’t in anything past or future

But what was happening right now

And though there seemed to be

Nothing there --- No thoughts that

Said or spoke --- The very emptiness

Was filled with Light though nothing

Sighted there --- And no occurrence.

Simpler and simpler was the way of ‘it’

The more that I didn’t do, to do ‘it’ . . .

                           *

Vol. 2. / 192.) Life Is Caught Not Taught

Life was in seeing more than

The exterior ---

Truth was in what it contained:

Life was caught not taught.

There were the explainings:

A necessary ‘evil’

And there was the thing itself:

An unexpected delight;

But always the thing itself

Excelled above its explanation

The straightforward was easy

But easy is not always best

                        *

Vol. 2. / 191.) The Voice of Herons

Lakes and rivers --- enter and mingle

In this realm where white herons fly

Oneness weaving through everything

All things touching infused with love

All sounds heard in harmony blending

But let these white birds outside stray

Let them once in the outer company fly:

Their sweetest voice is not heard aright

Harsh and ugly their voices grate and jar

They’re judged back-to-front and hard

Of a different spirit: they’re misunderstood

Misread their pearls are quickly trampled

Their beauty cast as mud and dragons

What is beauty to one is rubbish to another

Division hurts, division mends: light enters

                                   *

Vol. 2. / 190.) The White Windmills

Ecstatically surprised by what they’d made

The white windmills beside the mystic dyke

Found, all pains and muddles, grist to their mill

Finely ground to Life, they no more feared them

For of their darkest hours they’d made the

Brightest things, as they gloried in the wind which

Turned them: the force that hurt: the power of Life!

                                    *

Vol. 2. / 189.) The Letter Tree

There isn’t much you could say

About a tree with no leaves

Except that it was probably winter

But it wasn’t, it was summer

And still the tree had no leaves

And, no, it wasn’t dead, either

It was a dream, of course ---

A waking dream, and one which

Haunted me for many days . . .

It was so, that as I stood and stared

The tree became transparent ---

And in the ground I saw the roots

Splay out --- as though there was no

Earth there, and no more there wasn’t

But a clear stream beneath this tree

Was all there was --- until ---

A pause in time and up through the

Roots I saw white waters flow --- and

As they went --- became as letters?!

Leaves now grew out the strangest tree

As branches filled with many letters!

And --- as if this weren’t enough, a wind

Appeared and bent the thing, and off

The letters flew as if on angel’s wings!

Ten thousand went --- and on the tree

Ten thousand more and all complete!

To write to a country you do not know

Or to people you have never seen

And see a tree soak up your every word

Is weird! --- and to watch a picture

Of your life burst through your walls ---

Is strange! --- but then to know you’re

Not insane is even stranger!

How can this thing be? I do not know!

But, oh, how funny it is and very true!

What joy and laughter can and does

--- Breakthrough!

      *

Vol. 2. / 188.) Oblique, The Truth Takes A New Turn

Oblique, the truth takes a new turn

The not-expected appears in part

Not quite fitting the seer sees the fit

And the laden beauty is seen between

Wisps of seared seams are unravelled

The riddled puzzle simply saying more

They imbibe the loosed honeyed waters

That now from their tight grip surrender

Dwellers beside a live river do not thirst

Those who step backwards find its flow

Esteeming another above self they find

They trespass not upon the sacred lands

In the gilded evening white herons fly

As the light dies a day is made golden

Angels walk here where we fear to tread

Lifting the weak, bearing them on wings

They that have no set maps are complete

The way of life not in knowledge packets

Love undone turns the way upside down

Telescopes made of love reveal the treasure

                             *

Vol. 2. / 187.) Many Hands Dip Pulling Weeds

Many hands dip pulling weeds

Sudden delight is taken in it

By the few clutter is removed

The many see not what it is

Many went to grip the fullness

A bright star had lit the way

Dressed in grey it was not seen

Mixing many colours we lose it

The first ladder was laid flat

And a second was brought

For awhile light poured out

And they saw inside the pips

None a third ladder stood

It is not separate from them

They could not understand

None could drink this cup

The fourth was left to swirling

The labyrinth not yet revered

The curved that try it are unfit

Only the narrowed fit a finding

Before see-through eyes, dust

Before a lighted dawn, the dark

Promised of a thousand promises

A crushed she-lamb lies down

           *

Vol. 2. / 186.) Becoming Clearer And Clearer

Along the real open road --- walking ---

Moving --- going forwards along ---

You came across the glass pebble stones

Here and there --- and all created of ideas

And so --- generating them --- and making

Increase as they became clearer and clearer

The road, truly open --- a free wayfaring place

Becoming brighter and brighter to the full day

The stones of its paving --- like unto crystal

Refined in the fire --- deep inset within it

And more and more visible --- laid one upon

Another --- one upon another --- and loosed

                               *

Vol. 2. / 185.) Do Not Look For The Expected

Do not look for the expected ---

You’ll find it and be disappointed

For what you expect will blind you

To what you haven’t thought of yet

Which, had you not expected to see

What you already knew, you might

Have come across it, and seen it

Enough to actually notice it ---

Many paint pleasantly the surface

Appearances, and are clever at it ---

But always a few get to be underneath

And feel the undercurrent ---

These know --- that if they cannot feel

An undercurrent they are painting

Only a series of things ---

Which though novel and attractive

At first --- soon grow tiresome

There is an undercurrent --- the reality

Beneath all appearances everywhere.

It is the sensing of this --- behind ---

All things that lends the power that

Makes the eye see and the hand move

In ways which result in things --- alive

That can breathe --- and effect change

   *

Vol. 2. / 184.) Everywhere

There is everywhere so much love

But there are places where

It is despised ---

Love fills all the holes in me

And again and again ---

Runs ahead of me, even waiting

To pour in its oil ---

Love washes away the mud

The deluding flood leaves ---

Takes me with it wherever it will

We have strange ways of seeing

Not by chance are we put in its path

In loving alone the flood passed us by

If we only knew --- then we could tell

If we knew what we saw --- we could

Go inside it --- we would be --- there

We would paint it ---

And there are more ways of painting

Than one --- and more ways of loving

Than has ever been heard of . . .

                          *

Vol. 2. / 183.) Of People Who Appear Similar

Of people who appear similar

The seemingly same, spiritually,

Are prey to a great and insidious evil

And a hurtful spiritual theft . . .

The two persons seem the same ---

They seem to speak ‘the same language’

But let one of them quickly lay eyes

Upon the beauty in the work of the other

That they themselves prize --- and in

An instant all-unconscious moment

The delusion arises that this perceived 
            Greater thing in the other, that one 
            Is seeing is diminishing one ---

(In some unrecognized, subtle way . . .)

At once a spontaneous spiritual

Thwarting of the other will possess one:

It hurts to find another ‘better’ than oneself

But, it hurts, too, even more --- to sense

And feel the theft --- though, of course

It’s all hid and suppressed, and overlooked

But proof: that the two similar persons

Are of two different spirits entirely:

Two forces which clash with one another

All the while applauding one another

     *

Vol. 2. / 182.) The Shadowless Road

Whichever way I face the brightness

On the world’s idea of road and sun

I cast a shadow before or behind me:

There, I am solid and the sun cannot

Penetrate or go all through me at all

In the sunshine of this firstling world

A shadow I cast and wherever I stand

Seeing in ‘first sight’ everything in it ---

It makes no difference where I stand in

Trying to spare things from my shadow

It falls upon, something, somewhere

Always, as my shadow follows always

And where the shadow of me is there

There is a covering cast dark as a net:

It is only a blank image of me, not I ---

Not real, images cannot do anything ---

They cannot spare or save or make alive

In the world’s idea of sun and road and

Seeing in ‘second sight’ everything in it

Wisdom, knowledge: --- certain opinions

My shadow standing in the path of light ---

Casting of it only an image: --- powerless!

All new is --- love’s idea of sun and road ---

The son shines through me wherever I am

No wisdom, knowledge, or certain opinions

Remain to block the road transparent ---

On the open road light penetrates through

No shadows behind me or any before me

Not anywhere is a shadow cast --- from

A person, opened: naked: see-through ---

In ‘third sight’ seeing upon the open road

No mouldy image found anywhere there

There --- the only place where I do no harm

                               *

Vol. 2. / 181.) The Open Road

The open road is the rarest road in the world

It has always been there behind the scenes

But its penchant toward elusiveness is certain

It has never struggled to be seen, it is complete

The slanting of truth has been perfected upon it

‘Till harbouring nothing its paving is of pure gold

There are no offences there, no stinging thing at all

Its peculiar properties the property of the broken

On it is a particular quality of blithe gentleness

Just as a particular quality of penetrating light

There is no fear there for those who walk on it

The world with all its catch-words is renounced

The open road is always ascending and descending

The hills it traverses being often tunnelled through

Through darkness the way to light was found there

And the darkness has never extinguished the light

The road open is to those who are deceitful closed

They shall never find it who for gain sell the truth

The selfish who see it from a distance only crave it

They will never fathom the way of it who bargain

   *