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

                                   *

The Fall and Rising Again of Many

 If of immortal flowers light was heat

Then was heat light

Then were no gardens of ornament which could confine it

That beyond which budding flowers were deemed weeds

Then were no barriers to the sun

It shone on one as on the other

None excluded from its light or heat

The will of the sun

To bless each weed and flower as one

If of perfect beauty truth was love

Then was love truth

Then were no forms needed to hold it in any container

That outside of which you were deemed lost

Then were no divisions between men

None being any better than any other

Love alone made equality clear

And the whole picture plain

The prerogative of love to make the good and bad alike

When truth was only love

And love was all the truth

Then would simplicity be restored 

And babes would take the stand

The mighty from their thrones would be removed

Who sold the truth at a cost to others not themselves:

That one-edged truth which could never please all men

Then would wonders be everywhere in wisps of air

Truth free of rigid form love reigned  

When all the messaged leaves

From all the trees of selfish men have fallen

When every petal of every flower of Sensennae

Lies discarded

Each one surpassed and so proved senseless

As half truth left and soon forgotten 

Then life will begin again

And out of beauty’s selfless sap renewal rise

And through hearts that long have waited

That love should turn the tables of the balance

Choosing fields that please all men

And loose the downtrodden restoring all things

 

Dare!

Starlight shines upon a garden Rose

Its soft loveliness belies its secret  

That it kept within it a deeper gift

That both beauty and truth were in it

Irresistible fragrance bound with a sting

Irrefutable truth bound with grace

Unfathomable the reason for its thorn in me

Unthinkable the joy of its inherent Giver  

And there the terrible part of my unsolvable question:

Shall I run from the painful thing

Because it offends?

            But the carpet is red that bears the feet of them

            That have trodden down the grapes

Laid before those who held not back from life

Because of death

It is better to dare than hide! 

The Saga of Amethyst Poetry / Part Seven: Painting Poetics / 'Writings' as 'Paintings'

  Painting and Writing, link: The Ragged Writings of Everland can be compared with an artist's paintings. Just as the strokes and colours of a particular painting produce a certain emotional effect in us, in its communicating without words, so a piece of writing communicating in seemingly unintelligible words, in words within words, can have a similar pleasurable effect on us, also. Beauty can be as much in the sound of a run of words, as in the sight of a play of colours in an abstract painting. But like everything else which affects our consciousness, we need to learn to become conscious of such a thing, lest it pass us by. 

Amethyst Poetry

     Sometimes, truth, too hard to be said in one way, will find another way to express itself; love never ceases to translate its fiery gems. Sometimes beauty, too piercing to be conceived in its raw state, will come to us clothed in complexity that we might be able to bear it; even appearing in a form we might naturally resist in order to protect itself from being too easily seen. The interior of love too wonderful by far to be perceived by any proud eye, its secrets were the portion of the pure in heart. As the ennobling fires of beauty and truth wait to be welcomed of the poor in spirit, so the shining amaranthine gems of Amethyst Poetry are poised here, their truth and beauty hidden, yet waiting to be discovered. All gifts of love to all who read...shine through the amaranthine rocks Amethyst Poetry . . .