Poetry Diary: Part 3. ) Looking-Glass Stones... Reflecting back at you whatever you see in them...

POETRY DIARY:  PART THREE:

When I first tried to write an explanation to help people cope with the strange language that came out of me, it sounded rather antiquated and strange in itself! But much of what has come out in this book (and in this blog) is not exactly what I had intended; a hand other than my own writes deep inside my life. 

   (I have written more on this in: THE LIGHT TREE JOURNAL: Portrait of a Lost Door: Creative Memoir.) Anyway, the following is what I first wrote after I assumed I was rejected and had begun calling them ‘ragged writings’ instead of poems . . .  

   A piece of ragged writing, which upon first reading appears incomprehensible, will, to the diligent searcher, slowly render its secret treasure upon each subsequent reading; enlarging the faculties of the inmost being to taste and eat of a whole new kind of fare. If we will but let go the incessant demand of our intellect to understand something before we can enjoy it, we might develop the spiritual capacities that are within us instead – the ones which make us who we truly are – the exercise of which will bring a more satisfying reward than we could ever imagine. 

   It is hard. But narrow a river and it will flow more swiftly. All our lives we have thought that it was the nurturing of the mind that was the way to knowledge. But over feeding the intellect has hindered the heart. And we have been frustrated, albeit unknowingly, in our longings for what was beyond and never finding it: for the way of knowledge, by heart and spirit, is the reverse of the way of it, by mind. And anything in reverse in us is hard. To turn around is hard. But help a butterfly escape from its cocoon and it dies. Its wings never develop. It needed its struggle to fly. And so do, we!  

   Read without wanting. Read as though you were being read, yourself. The ‘ragged writings’ are as looking-glass stones, reflecting back at you whatever you see in them. You could work them out, with some mental effort; or, you could soak them in, with no effort at all. In both are joys! Most of all you will discover that you are given, out of not demanding to understand; and you will find surprise and delight in it! 

                                                                    *

THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND:  Volume Three:  Arkiahh Dreaming:  (Vol.3 / 28; 21; 16; 7.)

28. A Splay of Light in an Assembly of Letters

A SPLAY OF LIGHT in an assembly of letters

Prisms in shining rain taking form in a book

All that was poured in one falling of sunshine

A shaping of radiant life light as a feather

The furtherest beacon from an arbour of booklight

Isles in written rain building lands in leaves         

All that was shining in a breaking of heart-light

A sculpting of sacred life bright as a fire

                                 *

21. A Run of Light in Silver

A RUN OF LIGHT in silver

Rain in sun from leaves

Lit lingering drops fall

Bright pages spring back

Dawn dreams awaken

Eyes let in the daylight

Looked-for things come

The set-apart see them

Birds are gone beyond

The flighted find them

The broken live in air

The picked plant dies

Snatches take the stand

Grasps nearly get there

Only letting go we find

Unbroken hearts hold on

A fall of light in gold

Dust in sunbeam paths

Life’s chaff held secure 

Books of vanished sound

                              *

16.Set Against the Light

SET AGAINST the light

I see through my fine bone china cup

Facing the light---

I see through my delicate flesh---

Find there the level of that which fills me

Not running from the dark amount I see

Embracing the whole of me---there---

Where there is a wealth of reality

To wrestle with---

To hear the tiny sounds in its substance---

The sweet dark---the light I haven’t seen yet---

In the struggle---before the distilling---

And then the joy in tipping out---

Pouring out my light---in its silver streams---

Freeing me from the hold of dull living

Accepting and not rejecting all I see---

Within my fragile brittle cup

                                         * 

7. Trickling Down the Lines of Sight

TRICKLING DOWN the lines of sight

Bright beads of raindrops, dripping, meeting

Falling sight in mirrored window eyes---

And light---in rivers running---

From a sky of tears that never asked for them---

Never dreaming they’d be needed

Though nothing truly good

Was ever made without them

Even those that outwardly never emerged---

Locked inside---were the secret channels

Of true perception---

Lines of sight that could come no other way

Though we tried every other means

And went through every outer-part of knowledge

No other way worked so well as sorrow---

The un-thanked-for gift---the other side of joy

The un-looked-for dark in tomorrow

Which today was bright

*