A Portrait of a Lost Door . . . A New Ragged Writing . . . New Section Written . . . A New Poem in Three Parts . . .

Portrait of a Lost Door                                 

It was from a far country I had come---

Where endless illumination came out of darkness:

Out of what wasn’t understood---till one did---from it

There, one was of no age, neither, young nor old

One just was and always had been

And of no size, large or small, but the right size

Perfectly fitting that place where one desired to be

Here was, no language or wisdom

That we could understand

Some say we lived here before ever we were

For we have ever been

And say, too, that we knew this country

When we were very, very young

But should one not have retained

The slightest memory of it

It would not diminish, even so,

It was within one not as memory but as life

My ability to cherish it now and tomorrow

A fact---a gift---

In all my yesterdays it was in me already and ever is

There, the smallest child

Was wiser than the wise and prudent
Another kind of language was there
Thought strange and foolish here
As incomprehensible as snow is to fire
And as a jewel is to the blind

The more I have of the wisdom of this world

The less I have of the other

For it was of a quality
That cannot be measured by gain

But by loss---because it was without end

A bird can fly by

And I can see it as a dart of dark or light

And it is gone

But there I am not separated from the beauty I see

I am with it---

And no matter its speed---alongside---

One with its---life

Leaps, that are, here impossible

There are, a matter of course---perfunctory

I was with all I saw and had always known it

  

In the touch of beauty

The sense of sight took on a look of---

Having---possessing---because one had nothing---

A sense of knowing what couldn’t be known

In dwelling in the source from whence it came

And as for sound---

The site of it was ever in the midst of love---

And sight in the centre of peace---

And all that was of their marrying there            

Was as back-to-front as dark and light

And no man knew it that had not life

It was from a 'far country' I had come

Where endless light came out of fearful darkness

Darkness---because total light could not be understood

And so would not fit him who had not life---

Yet beauty had once been his to give as he saw fit

He only returns to life and light who only knows 
He is dead and dark

               *                           

In the breath of loveliness

There were no shut places in my country---

No places where the taken-air could not escape once

Its beauty had entered in the living open heart---

It flowed out in measured lines of airy darkest Light:

Truth---that having worked its life---within

Went everywhere---and on and on, so,

Gathering---in its gifted freedom---

All of solace that it could ever meet

And so sure---the laden breath---of no shut place

The loveliness never faltered as it went on

To enter every rested heart it met

Show the taker’s face---reveal the giver’s heart---

The influence of beauty reached more inner-homes          

Touched more inner-souls of men

Worked more wonders in each and every one                                  Than we could ever imagine
                                     

                                    * 

And of the door

No man yet had entered through it

That of his, own volition

Had tried to enter in

It was the mystery and paradox

Of the distant country---

Its door was not made of any      

Substance comprehensible to the world

And visible only to them that took the trouble

To let down their wings---

Their tightly held selves---and let go all pride

It was the nearest door and the one most distant

That was the threshold of the inner glory

And the beginning of the way of life---     

Once opened---

But the door before us the hardest to enter in

Love alone would reveal it and open it inside

Of silver---refined in a thousand fires it was made

Inlaid with gold---sealed and purified

Of the substance of down----light as snowflakes

It would seem to be wrought

Such as could be plucked from the breast

Of a goose---

One of ‘foolish’ trust---and with a broken wing

Led home---held in a child’s arms

Of its hinges---

It pivoted upon one’s cross---

The door swung on joyful expectation

Balanced in a cup of faith

Imbued with patience

Its handle---

True courage in adversity---

That turned tragedy to glory

And made of every difficulty

An opener of gold---

The possession of the weak

Made strong in surrender . . .

               * 

All my simple portrait of---a lost door---

The door in the tree of life

That took me through---

That opened in my loss of me

It was the way of entrance waiting to be found

Drawn in pastel upon every sunset cloud

Painted in sunrise---the oils touched within---

In every drop of silver mist

Its reflection shone---

Its picture in every blade of dewy grass

            And upon every lip of truth it kissed 

                                    *

                                                    From: ARKIAHH DREAMING; The Ragged Writings of Everland; Volume Three

Poetry Diary: / The Light Tree...

     It was only a dream, but it seemed so real. I turned a corner in a park. I passed another flower garden then came upon a large grassy place. It was early, a huge golden sun rising above an azure horizon, and my heart, in truth as open as this place, found before it a splendid gift. A widely spreading tree stood alone, and the sun was shining through it, through the very heart of it, and it seemed as if it were made entirely of light.   Its leaves, shaped like the leaves of a flame tree, were vivid green, shining like emeralds upon which were writings. The tree pulsated with light and life, every part of it, alive, energized, and complete! It was a picture of a glorious destiny, a promised end; and before the beginning of it had even begun! I do not know how I knew this.   As I looked, I was drawn nearer, and I saw it more clearly. A great golden ring of light circled through its branches and down through its roots. In the tree was a door, open; through which one could only yearn to enter, and live! Out of the door and from between the roots of the tree a river of living water was flowing.
   A wind came. Little by little some of the leaves were loosed from the tree. They went hovering around it, but staying close to the tree, not leaving its environs. Though these leaves were indeed severed from the tree, the light went all through them as though they were still joined. They were as broken pieces from the heart of the tree where the light shines through; where pierced by the truth and torn asunder, it had learned its secret lessons, found its hidden treasure.
   I could hardly breathe. It was as if I had never seen anything more beautiful. Everything within me yearned for the light of the living tree so great was the love which was in it and flowed from it; and it was imprinted within my own heart as living burning truth.
   I gasped. Suddenly the tree became so vast I could not comprehend it. The light so bright I shut my eyes. All in one split second, I had heard and seen all I could and turned my head away. Received of all it needed in the instant, and all of everything! But to know what I could not know, for fear of bursting at the seams, yet find it was all contained within me, and as though it were nothing, and of no consequence, words fail to describe so strange a thing it is beyond me.
   Through the years the remembrance of the light tree was a comfort. But sometimes when I was far away and in darkness the form of its impression as ‘a tree’ would fade and I forgot it as such. But then, so present was its formless substance of light and life within that it just had to break out somewhere, and in other forms, and in other dimensions. Its influence as water, which seeping out through even the tiniest crack in me, and evaporating into thin air, could somehow quench my thirsting thoughts for meaning in my life, while ever enthusing my inner being to search for more. And it did so, by my making things. Things which appeared beautiful to me; but which now, looking back I know were only my half-desperate efforts to make sense of what I could not yet understand! But, by making something beautiful, that I could see, and touch, and hear, which somehow spoke to me of the lost light tree and embodied it I found I was comforted, in an outer sort of way. But, oh, I knew there was so much more… further, and deeper, and beyond it.
   Beauty enchanted me. It drew me onwards. Because somehow I knew it connected with truth. Something beautiful and true was effectual. It transported the heart to a place where it could hear. Opened it so that it could see. To me beauty and truth had become inseparable. When I found one I had found the other. One was a path leading to the other. Where they met there was a simplicity which delighted. Where neither sought their own profit they could please, and in all things. Made one . . . there . . . there was love, true peace and freedom.
   The simple things I made were always out of broken pieces; and those things through which the sunlight could shine or reflect, and which the wind could sound in. It seemed appropriate to describe the light in terms of fragments and broken things. Why, I do not know. Perhaps, there could be several different reasons. Because as physical things mingle with heavenly things truth becomes layered in different levels of understanding as the foreshadowing of it gives way for its substance. But the simplest reason why is probably because the light is utterly vast, and I am not, and being broken in pieces myself I can only think of one part of a thing at a time! For just as the leaves of the living light tree, were many, and each one, expressing only the tiniest part of the whole, at any one time, so I!   I can only grasp one ‘story-leaf:’ one ‘living-letter:’ one chink of light, one portion of living truth from the tree of life, as and when I have need of it in my own life. And from it learning anew, as I give up something of my own selfish self, I am renewed in that vacated place! It becomes a ‘further’ truer part of me; and my eyes and ears, see and hear, where once they didn’t! Then I am set at liberty to describe what it is I see; picturing it, in part, either in the natural realm, by a physical work of art, or in the heavenly realm, by the ethereal written word. Both can bear the light: both do. Because the light is everywhere and pieces all things together! Making complete: a seamless whole! Even making ‘me’ whole: binding my every crack it seeped or shone through!   And so the fruit of my life: whether it was in artworks, or written ‘story-leaves’ and ‘letters,’ all were caught up, and loosely held aloft by a central thread of light, going turning about in the wind of the Spirit, as it was blowing gently upon them giving them life and light…to truly... see!

                                                        *

Story: 4. ) A String of Red Beads / added to A BOOK IS LIKE A SACRED ISLE; A Rain of Booklight; A book about books

A String of Red Beads                                                                                                      

   A row of ancient books I saw upon a shelf. Of course, I had seen them there many times before, but this time I ‘saw’ them: drawn to them. So I took a few and stood them up on the bedside table, where the lamp was, and turned off the main light. The lamp’s golden glow lit up the books and seemed to give them life, shining on their gold leaf writing pressed hard into their poor spines; broken, or about to break. I loved them. Not because I was interested in their stories; I did not know what they were. They were too hard for me to understand; I had never read them. I just wanted to absorb their flavour, and write like they did, but without reading them. I think I had stepped outside all the boundaries that imprison the child and make of it an adult; and escaped, I could do as I pleased. So, very small, I slipped inside the books themselves; and with their pages all round me, their pretty ways of stringing words together became an oil, which poured itself into one of my many corners, and quickened me. Suddenly that which was impossible I could do, for I was a child. And from then on I wrote whatever popped into my head; and I was pleased. But it was not always easy.

   One day with inkpot and loosed feather I found it writing what seemed to me like a string of ripe-plucked cherries. The hard things I knew were their red hearts, and the oil, fleshing out their inward part in dreams and in visions the succulent part beneath their skins. Once ‘eaten’ there strung on a black ink thread of words was a string of ‘red beads.’ A living story-bracelet left of life preserved by death!                                                 

                                                               *                                                    

An extract from the book THE LIGHT TREE JOURNAL, Portrait of a Lost Star. 

This book is listed in the right hand column of this blog site . . .