Voyages

Every moment we return

from a journey mapless and obscure.

Ethereal dust blankets our martyred feet,

spirit muscles burn,

our souls sink fathom-heavy with

the weight of all we have witnessed–

last desperate campaigns of the heart;

cavalcades of swaying pilgrims,

lost in perilous forests of doubt;

solemn coronations of grey, imperial rain.

This immanence is vouchsafed to all

who wander in their dreams, night or noon,

across musing summer meadows, or

above cascades of never-trodden peaks,

with only the clouds for company,

a traveler and a seeker true,

bound for the unvanquished republic of the skies.

July 9

There is a stillness at the heart of all things.

You have sensed it in the interstice of moments alone

and in the ebb tide of quiet lovers’ talk.

You have felt its cool touch in the laughter of your children,

or when the Sun’s repose has quenched

the sky’s colonnades of fire.

Patience and tranquility attend it;

passed translucent souls serve as fervent

acolytes in this alabaster temple of the mind.

Yet you have striven all your life for

the dirty playthings of this world.

Your felt your blood rise and brutal rage,

an uninvited guest, visit your heart

and all because–but you have forgotten the cause.

You allowed hate and jealousy to put their plump hands in yours.

Judas, Mammon and Mara smiled at the ease with which

you were led astray.

But now, at the end, the moneylenders have fled;

the boulevards of trade and avarice stand empty.

There is no one left to blame, or to judge.

Clutch your feverish brow–murmur vows of repentance–

shriek frenzied imprecations at Creation:

it will not alter the solemn light

shimmering on the leaves one iota.

The tender universe shines on in grace and quietude

as you slowly kneel down, at long last a true disciple.