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

   *

A Book is like a Misty Mountain

A book is like a tall misty mountain: 

Its heights covered at first, 

   in its clever way of concealing

      its plot in cloud;

Revealing only slowly its distant colour:

   strong, majestic, 

      towering in its power to move me.

Perhaps, if could I move mountains, 

   simply by believing,

I could tell a book, simply by its cover:

And know a truth, I could not know 

   by reasoning,

      but, by faith's own fathoming, alone: 

In a book is truth greater than words.

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 29

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

A Book is like a Lighted Candle

A book is like a lighted candle . . .

It casts its inner glow a certain sphere

A certain circle in its inner giving of itself

Its pages turned: its wax consumed

From its bright beginning

It shines unto its end the same

It has no knowledge of where it might abide

Only of the light it shines inside, within its wick 

The truth it finds in me which mirrors it

Poem from a Sequence: 

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 16

(c) Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

Deep Pools

Deep pools of sacred possessions

Un-cautioned cascades of revelation

Chasing braved bounties in love’s tellings

And a bright-made woven holder

For all my heart’s own wrested rovings

Daft pieces of fast ravings

Un-careful shavings of sharp arrows

Colliding particles in plenty’s pouring 

And a soft-filled safety folder

For all my heart’s own suffered bleedings

Dusted scribblings of dashed truth

Un-captured portions of chaliced lives

Coiling burned embers in my seven sides

And a silver-made chaste casket

For all my heart’s own secret sorrows

                         *

Un-counted the silver of silent stars

Standing without end or known number

Like my ribs

All broken in love’s reachings

Like my bruised heel and wounded head

The Star's Still There

We were so nearly there

For further fly all our cherished aspirations 

Than we could ever imagine

Our bright hopes

Though they be only thought and so briefly seen

Have breath and life                                                         

                                                         

What we once conceived of virtue and true living

Of beauty beyond all our fondest dreams

That which came so close and was so real awhile  

Went softly streaming by

Veiled in silken clouds and airy wine

Oh, but we were so nearly there  

We felt the flicker of life’s wings

Living things brushed past

But reaching out to touch

We lost

Oh, had we only known then

How to enter in  

But before we knew it

The vision had slipped on by and fled us

What had seemed so possible was now only a dream

And, oh, the emptier we felt for having seen

But no bright purpose was ever lost that once has been 

Truth’s star’s still there! 

As deep inside as it is above 

Where night’s endless light is                                                      

                                                      

Our mansion’s kept, our heart voice mapped

Upon Love’s palm our place

And the everlasting vision etched

Out held, kind, ever offering

Love’s hand is always there      

“We always may be what we might have been”

I Turned the Page . . .

I turned the page and there before me an open door

Untainted more and more, the more I turned

Fresh velvet violets in sweet scented pools

The light revealed there

And forests further in, where I followed in further

I faced the page and there before me an open space

Unsealed more and more the harder I searched

Swift silver swallows in fast flighted wells

The glimpse concealed there   

And Everland beyond, where I walked in beyond

I read the page and there before me an open mind

Unfastened more and more the faster I went

Wisps and willows in long languid streams

The love outpoured there

And Heart’s Ease within, where I within I went

I held to the page and there before me an open heart

Overt more and more the surer I was

Vast treasured truths in kind captured books   

The distance travelled there

And Kingdoms further in, where I further ventured

I had wanted a gem and there before me an open bounty

Truth filled, and more and more, the more I ‘died’ there

Hope’s honeyed harvests in sap savoured rivers

And serenity inside, where I bathed in insides

Rays Uncounted

Of seven rays the colours of light

More I could not see

Yet they were there

All paths of light spilling out the truth

Going uncounted of them

That for love knew nothing

Going unnamed and untitled

The rays could not be pulled apart

Or owned, or torn to shreds

Or chopped up in pieces.

Maligned they were in  

Multiplicity’s deceptive knowledge

Thinking I knew, I was counting

And counting paths left holes

And as many gaps in truth

As rays named

Could I count the stars

I would know how many rays

Could I count every grain of sand

On every shore

I might even see them all

But if I knew all things

Which only those who know nothing do

I should find I had hardly begun to see them

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 Five: Wisdom of the Amaranth

         How easily and unconsciously creative expression becomes enmeshed in conventional practice, and current trends put up walls. To live outside the box is always a challenge! All around us are living pictures of ourselves, which give insight into this universal truth; as it is in the world of Nature, so in all things. The living ‘flowers,’ of a single ‘plant,’ come to ‘bloom’ for awhile, then die for new ones to flourish. In their continuously necessary, cycle of life and death, continuous renewal: the way of LIFE, for all things. But we are not so wise as the flowers! We hang on to ‘the stem,’ refuse to fall, and so, miss out on what’s next . . . the wisdom of the amaranth . . . the never-fading flower of truth.

  

   [I have written extensively of the above – Nature’s universal truth – in my memoir:  ‘THE LIGHT TREE JOURNAL: A Twelve Month Story-Journal: Portrait of a Lost Star.’ (Creative non-fiction.)  This section of my unpublished book is available in pdf format in Microsoft Word Document 2007 from the author. Email: judithdeverell@hotmail.com ]

A Ring of Love: an Extract from an Epic Poem

     The poem, A Ring of Love, is an extract from a much larger work, IN THE PATHS OF MYRDDIN WYLLT . . . a 9,400 word epic poem concerning the sixth century legendary Welsh bard and poet, Myrddin Wyllt; a forerunner of the famous Merlin of the medieval legends of King Arthur. More on this later! But the unpublished manuscript of this epic poem is available to those who would like to read it. (Contact author and request via email: 

 arielaevans@gmail.com ) 

      To reach out, to give beautiful words new every day from the inner wells, was my longing...words through an inner fullness speaking light. The outflow of living waters from the midst of me was unending; and I longed to share from out of the treasures of my experience the living truth which fires the creativity in my life. There was just so much to share. So much to tell of the beginnings of Amethyst Poetry. But before I could begin to unravel further the saga of my writing life, the following came, written today . . . 

Veiled Realms of Swiftlight 

Out of the things which were first, the greater part of purple palaces

Inner castles graced with ivory towers and the amaranth within

The amethyst flowerets mystic pale with milky light 

All fused with royal red and blue

Casting from the windows of my sight

The firstling things I have within

To speak instead in silent gems of the veiled realms of swiftlight

Of the breaking parts of faith that slowly fill with love and unravel here

Out of the things which were second, the amaranthine tumbling spires

From which my inner-writing banners flew

Out from my highest tower, my hooded tercel tossed skyward

Flung from a soft gloved hand

Set free to gather its beloved prey, and return to me the longed for news 

That, from afar they would hear and in that oneness promised

Draw near and I would know that from today 
I was not alone

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 . . .