Quick Start Guide for the Heart of Poetry

To craft an authentic poem, 

first rest in silent inspiration. 

Let me quickly clarify: 

if intuition is defined 

as universal consciousness 

whispering to divided mind, 

then inspiration is reflection 

of awareness sagaciously 

informing that holistic being. 

Now begin to write, or rather, 

write what one is being told. 

When all appears complete, 

perform an end inspection 

and remove whatever time slipped in. 

Revelations in the Surf

On Plum Island, on its uninhabited beach 

at the Parker River Wildlife Refuge, 

I walk an abiding way along the shore 

while gazing at substantial waves arising 

from an outwardly serene Atlantic Ocean. 

They form a never-ending line of succession 

as ray upon ray ignite in flame and seafoam. 

I stop where weather-beaten sands had shifted 

fashioning a sandy cape from where I watch 

the waves both to my left and there before me. 

Witnessing the row of waves in profile, 

I feel as one arising with them, 

seeing myself as curl in an evolutionary crest 

as that enlightening crash dissolves 

the wave of all the universe—

we then return to sea. 

Footnotes to an Ad Hoc Prayer

The way of silence is personal devotion to an absolute 

but the way of light is surrendering to the absolute’s intent. 

Enlightening intent to know itself comes into being. 

Universal being is evolving in complexities of mind. 

Deconstructing mind is seeing through its own complexities—

to be the silent seeing intent on seeing itself. 

Nothing in this process is unnecessary. 

Everything is moving at the speed of that enlightenment. 

Relatively speaking, the meaning of life is to know I Am That, 

although absolutely speaking, there is no meaning—

but the absolute is never absolutely speaking.

Ad Hoc Prayer

in a way of speaking, 

the meaning of life is 

helping god know itself—

by seeing through 

one’s conceptual illusions 

as, by, of a person 

and simply be…

thus seeing sees 

it is seeing 

itself, 

god, 

that

in the name of 

pure awareness, 

enlightening intent, 

universal being, 

and deconstructing mind—

I Am That

Winter Follies

They were standing on the viewing platform 

with their focal acquisitions, long 

zoom cameras, spotting scopes, and carbon fiber 

tripods, looking for another bird 

to acquisition for their memories, while 

consulting with each other on the technical 

specs of their recently-acquired equipment, 

divulging stories of the special sightings 

they remembered like a snowy owl 

consuming innards of a meadow vole 

as twenty birders grabbed exclusive pictures. 

Their chatter was annoying me as I 

looked out upon a spacious empty winter 

marshland. What about my own attempt 

to acquisition all that precious silence?

The Big Wave

Universal consciousness 

is like the sea and body-mind 

is like a wave and pure awareness 

is the sun reflecting in 

these waters after its intent 

to know itself unfolded into 

being as the sea evolving 

into wave upon wave upon wave 

until a single one of most 

particular complexity 

like Hokusai’s 'Great Wave' could see 

the sea and its reflection of 

itself, that precipice of sun, 

the one with no beginning and no end…

Samāpatti Rocket Mechanism of Myself

Sitting silently while looking out the window, 

it came to me the trees were just extensions of my body 

and in time this intuition had extended to the stars, 

including ones one only sees through Hubble’s eye. 

Resting silent as this universe, 

I looked within and saw an energetic fire 

and knew this inspiration filling me 

and trees and all the universe is what I really am. 

Existent, suddenly I saw I wasn’t in that space—

my divination says I am that space 

and all this matter of an energetic knowingness 

is actually within my silent seeing. 

Now a flash of revelation shows 

that even silent seeing space is just reflecting 

my unknowable and infinite awareness.

The Waking Giant

I rest my feet 

upon the coffee table 

and superclusters 

untold years away 

support their weight. 

I scratch behind 

the ears of Pluto 

and Andromeda 

wags its tail. 

I place my arm 

around a maple tree 

whispering 

she’s a lovely 

friend and universe. 

Awakening, 

I rubbed my eyes 

this morning; stars 

emerged to clear 

an age of sleeping.

This Sermon on This Life

Right now, I’m here alive. 

And when I die, 

this life will never know I’m dead. 

So why, as this vitality, 

should I concern myself with dying? 

The leaf will fall; 

the woods don’t mourn the summer 

while the trees prepare for spring. 

Am I the leaf, 

and if I am, 

I process light to know the light. 

Am I the tree, 

and if I am, 

I process light to know the light…

The Sermon on This Land That’s Your Land

I had always wanted to drive cross-country. Maybe it was Chris who forty years ago first put desire in my eyes to see this land as she discussed her trips back and forth from San Diego. Instead I studied all about its history and literature looking for the sights as others saw them.

Six years ago, my daughter was about to move to California, and being recently unemployed, I decided I should drive her there, and then I’d slowly circle myself home, visiting the natural wonders of America. And so it happened.

I wrote a poem while sitting on a great sequoia; took so many pictures in Yosemite they left me black and white; looked out upon Lake Tahoe’s mountain dark reflections; drove the lonesome road straight through the desert of Nevada; walked through sandstone Arches after crying at the marriage of the ground and sky in Canyonlands; looked out from Anasazi windows in the sacred vaults of Mesa Verde; never took a photo of an inexplicable white buffalo in Zuni; worshipped with the silent Acoma apparitions in Sky City; just missed a slow coyote on I-40 in New Mexico; touched the surface of the largest mass of turquoise ever while exploring Santa Fe; listened to the blessed myths of Taos Pueblo; found my way to Cripple Creek and finally the summit of Pike’s Peak from where I scouted over cornfields of Nebraska crossing Mississippi waters towards the east back home.

It was experience I cherish to this day. But still, it was the mere experience of a superficial world, infinite in its variety and wondrous in its manifest appearances, but nothing without the consciousness in which it’s seen.

This wordless Being is the only wonder of the universe. More to the point, it is the god in which that universe appears. It’s here and now, and everywhere I go, it is. Even nowhere. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus qui abundantia. This land is your land.