2000-2010

 STEVE FROST’S POEMS

Where the River Meets the Sea (I)
170[101] Where the River Meets the Sea (I)
Pencil on Arches Paper 40″x 22″ 2000 A.D.

“Aperiatur terra et germinet Salvatorum.”

In Memoriam

Georgia Frost

1920-2005

Raimón Panikkar

1918-2010


 

 

CONTENTS

 

After Compline

 

Backlit Grasses

 

A&A

 

Seven Love Poems

 

Death is a Friend , But…

 

Grief, Creation and Social Convenience.

 

Confession

 

Continuance May be Granted

 

Dirt

 

Now is the Time…

 

P.E.

 

Coffee Cake

 

Green Buds

 

Time

 

Preamble to the Mass

 

-Theotokos

 

The Mass

 

Dear Sir or Madam

 

Wake

 

Post Script

 


 

 

Who Told You You Were Naked?
165[94] Who Told You You Were Naked?

       Oil on Canvas 12′ x 8′

  1999

_________________________________________________

After Compline,

We continue down a verdant

Middle Way

 

Having stood in the hot shade

Of telephone poles

All the long road long

During enduring

-the day.

 

Nearby, a furious wasp

Is trapped

In a plastic shopping bag

With its putrefying cut of safeway steak

 

At night

We fly between

Stars and high wire dive

To deep rapids below

…wait for just the crepuscular

 

Moment to

‘stop the world’

Huachuca, Arizona  2003

_____________________

.

.

BACK-LIT GRASSES

 

Late sunlight

 

Glints

 

Gold white Brilliant off

 

The wing top

 

Of gliding black black raven

 

Watching.

 

Starts to illumine

 

Weed wild chaparral and mesquite, full grasses of our last profane exile.

 

Georgia nears dying,

And I try to

Remind her of the golden poppies and purple violet lupine

Of my kind infancy

The high wild oats and our secret place hidden amid fresh oats that hillside

retreat.

 

Weak and wretched /sweet and wise

she grows to a

 

‘great departure.’

 

 

Huachuca, Arizona–March, 2005

Initiation is nearly complete


 

 

Dear A&A,

Now comes our moment of truth:  …the riparian bank- amidst a

viscous alchemy, nestles sweet white blossoms between pebbles and

grains, sandy loam interrupted by black roots– élan vital–vigorous

claims made upon another’s resource; we struggle against mechanics.

Challenge intention.  Our progeny.  golem energy brooks little, cares

little, a cell gone wild. Charities feed the slogging maw on its

sainteterre path as much as its own …  Sweet blossoms waft. soft

fragrance.  Kind breezes soothe.  Still.  Mother/Virgin.  The kindness

of strangers…  who can resist?

 

And this is where you come in.  In my poem.   I complained to someone

important that I had no congregation.  You overheard and you kindly

volunteered.  Our first challenge was a gem.  Well, it was about gems.

Symbols.  Silly really.  A fascination.  But with such pebbles and

grains the bridge gets built.  An impossible plan.  Necessary.

Identity.  What to do with technical skill.  What’s to be with

methodology.  Clearly fact.  Our stream clouds.  Mud withholds its

healing.  Bark and birch hide their wonder.  Give up and die rather

than…

 

But now we are on beyond and down the vast plains.  Cold and heat moistly.  Envelope

my soul.  Whipped a tornado.  Out Church and Congress. ( …FEMA

failed the New maid’s city).  Last year, not this year. Out the

government.   Wash an inner eye while hurricane force winds whip the

sea.  The Glory of IT.

 

Surprised where the psyche may be?  Do you know?  Who are you?

 

________________

 

I meant to write to you and explain everything.  But the ‘poem’ came

out.  You were very tolerant with my intrusive and impossible request.

our sojourn near the mudflat, with the stoats, and other gentry,

energized me enough to make a decision.  Though abrupt–I’m

sorry–it’s brought me to where I need be and so you’ve been true

friends and righteous congregants. ( –the gold cross and chain might

be behind the trunk where the Bactrian coin has gone.)  I’m still

unpacking from the to-Jerusalem trip.  But now I have a lovely grey

brick house and a whirlpool– on the ‘high plains.’  …where I intend

to be to mix my portents and strike my staff.

 

Soft dreams,

OKLAHOMA–2007

 


 

 

SEVEN LOVE POEMS

 

 

 

1.

Pasture, fields

 

We were green incisions

breaking rocky sand after huge, hill slipping rains

Then the blue hills on long stalks, and golden orange sweeping to a climbing sky

sweet horse-breath tough muzzles

long hair, pulling lips and yanking teeth, naked and bareback we rode over cliffs into a peaceful ocean…

Wolf purple and Indians brush the slopes with salt skin sweat enough to lubricate the long soccer run across high school into

College, friends forms shapes

Color that keeps to itself to inspire only in love

Love that leaves and comes back and leaves

So that there is only God

but God doesn’t want ‘only God’

or he wouldn’t have made us.

 

 

2.

Now try this,

sidle up close so your smell can be known

Come up in green stalks so wild and thick they inspire blood

And pour over geography with the defiance of leaves…

Electric runs

And water courses

Green and diamond

Drops glisten and treasure like grease gravy on mashed

lightning in our subtle hearts.

 

Ride your bike like hell

down this side of the hill

now that you’ve given up drinking poison and have a smooth voice that would calm the UN

Charm to wed mist-hung climates and my power to change the weather.

 

3.

I’m not sorry we never got electric

Weren’t meant to I guess,

I can enjoy the memory much more

When the green oats covered any spare place in southern california, in san francisquito canyon…  Or with you from that filthy valley full of fornicating banks and used car lots spangled in prim wrapped banners of red and white strips—barbers gone wiley.  Wouldn’t have mattered– could have been in that flooded field with water up half way to the wide empty mouth/you squatting on top of that great drain without anything but a leather and fleece aviator’s jacket-atleastyourpectorlswerewarm that night with moon slivers sliding down the trunks of oak trees and walking on water like the Lord!

Hmmm… that wasn’t you, but it could have been.

4.

I can see you all umbered up,

Engorged with ochre

Lethargic and green gold– a great frog’s eye ripe with eggs in sacks of flem and cool streams

fragrant oxygen fumes and freshness/green grey shiny brown moss on treacherous flagstone flickering pond striders and every curious scarred turtle looking for a good time.

 

We could have whispered and giggled beneath those stubborn trees while brawny brothers and short but powerfully stacked dad carted rocks for our garden and patios.  I was too young, but I was learning the ways of water flows and volumes- riparian delights.  How light glints and scatters across the waters and the mud gleams as it rises to temples and pyramids.

You could have helped but some-body-else stepped in

On those bales of alfalfa and horse blankets with that underage banker…

 

5.

I guess it doesn’t matter that you loved somebody else, (or a whole string of DNAs),

Though, though, though well, well, well… one of the last was a beautiful boy.   Yes, I know he’s like your son rather than anything else…  But I still wonder about love.  Where are the boundaries?  They’ve over lapped like the ‘tap tap tap of that river pump’ on the frontier stream ‘tween Ecuador and Peru.  Didn’t matter then, I still sunk down knee deep in the river’s bed until I made love to streams and clouds–jet trails across my stream of conversation and still enthuses a jungle burn.  For c o r n?   With all its deities?  I still worship… but now I think I prefer friendship.

 

6.

All I see is those long stalks and feel the sticky sap that seeps and weeps when we picked their great blue bells—much more variegated in its person than the name can tell.  Now it’s a knife of a thousand revelations that I was a lucky kid in our hiding place and willing to pay the wind for its bite and the long walk up that rocky hill to know its love-

Once I lay on its side writhing that migraine out, so that the old school bus driver got out on his way home and climbed up to take care of me, though I was a quarter mile off the road and up the side of our hill that dad built on—all gone now.  More of what I learned to do as they were brawny and bold with those big flags of stone– More of light glinting across my ball the eye to your soul and sent now to save or kill.

 

7.

I could still be had by love… there are bigger definitions—though not better, I suspect.  Rather remember those wild flowers so few and far between–would that I could walk-on, once again, to walk out across an electric grid infini-

tes-

i-

mally small in its brane, eternally grand in its largess–  Intimate kimono of embroidered grace, gold and midnight etched across the sky.

And you I still love, but now still you’re sober in your corner room with a view (and its noise tolerated for past sins) and capable of memories even now…

So now the choirs still –sing

and rock and roll still guides your soul, inscribed your face

but there’s Something still

that will hold us dear

in its star-encrusted black,

 and empty space.

 2.22.2008


 Chama Canyon, New Mexico

 

DEATH IS OUR FRIEND’

 

#1.

DEATH IS OUR FRIEND, BUT ITS NOT THE FRIEND OF OUR FRIENDS.  SO WHEN SHE DIED I HATED DEATH FOR SEVERAL YEARS.  NOW I LOOK FOR HIM AROUND CORNERS AND UP THE STAIRS.  HOPE THE DANCE WON’T BE TOO LONG.  SO I WON’T BE COUNTED AMONG FOOLS.  THE ONES WHO ENJOY EVERYTHING AS IT ROTS.  IT’S A DETERMINATION. A JUDGEMENT?  ANOTHER DAMN SUNSET.  ANOTHER GUSH AND ANGUISH OF BEAUTY,

BACKLIT GRASS WAVING THE AFTERNOON THROUGH,

TIME’S LOCOMOTIVE POUNDING THROUGH TOWN.

AND THE WIND!  MAKING US APPRECIATE ITS GRANDURE.  THEY FORCE US TO LOOK AND FEEL AND WONDER.  WHAT A DIRTY TRICK!

 

RATHER SUSPEND BELIEF THIS TIME.  AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.  NOT SCIENCE FOR SURE.  BUT WHAT?  MAYBE NON-TIME.  MAYBE THE BLISS OF NO-THING.

06.12.09

 

#2. THE BERDASHE, SALVATION AND PRIESTS

 

THE TERROR OF BEING KNOWN.  YES, THEY LEER.  FRIGHTENED.  SNEAKING AROUND STALLS.  POSSESSED- THEY CAN’T KNOW WHATS EXPECTED.  BUT THEY HOPE FOR THE JIN’S SATISFACTION.  HOPE FOR THE FAVOR OF WHAT CONSTRUCTS THE WORLD. DON’T KNOW THAT THEY’VE BEEN ASKED TO NURSE THE TORN FLESH OF BIOLOGY’S PAEAN– TO DRAW TOGETHER LIFE’S TORN FETUS WITH THE SPIRIT WHO SURELY, SURELY WILL COMPENSATE FOR WHAT WE’VE MISSED.

 

06.12.09

 

#3.

ANGELS KNOW US IN THEIR GRANDURE, IN THEIR INTIMACY WITH MOLECULES AND FEELINGS.  STARS. DIAMONDS.   THAT’S WHY I PREFER RUBIES.  EARTH AND PASSION.  HARD SHARP CRYSTALS, BUT I’M SURE THEY CARE!  IMPOSSIBLE?  YES THEY DO THINGS.  BUT HOW CAN YOUR EYES TELL THE ROCKS FROM SERAPHIM.  YOU CAN’T, YOU NEED MY EYES!  AND THEN SING SO TREES WEEP.  REMEMBER THAT.  YOU’VE HEARD THE SONG, BUT MEMORY SKIPS OVER MELODIES LIKE THAT.  SOWS THEM IN SECRET POCKETS FOR WHEN SALVATION IS IN NEED.  DON’T NEED TO REMEMBER MUCH TO GET THROUGH LIFE.  ASK THE RUBIES.  THEY’LL TELL YOU.  BUT DON’T ASK A DIAMOND, UNLESS YOU KNOW THE SONG A SERAPH MIGHT SING!

 

06.12.09

 

#4.  DEATH/FRIEND POEM

The Monk said:

But I don’t like rubies that much like you.  Anyway, I will try to sing so trees smile.

Then, I said:

I’ve heard of “Weeping Willows.”  But I’ve never heard of a smiling sycamore, have you? Though Poplars chatter on.

The Monk: It seems to me they are whispering, dancing.

 

Me:

THEY GOSSIP AT THE SLIGHTEST BREEZE…  THE TREES ARE NOT THE POINT ANYWAY, THE SONG IS!  YOU CLAIM THE DIAMOND SUTRA.  I CLAIM THE HEART.  WE’LL SEE WHO CAN SING…

 

Then, the Monk went off to pray…

 

Strange I should turn such a moment into a jocular competition.  It’s good to be reminded that Joy is possible in spite of all the rest. Even Peace. A FORCE FROM A DIFFERENT FOLD OF BEING, maybe.

 

Though, I did say ‘bliss.’

 

06.13.09


Grief, Creation and, Social Convenience

The waters there had been ‘deep and dangerous’

 Deeply dangerous and they run until a far distant horizon of time is breached…

 But for now let’s learn quiet waiting.  It doesn’t do to make a fuss.- With these people

Only draws attention of a common sort.  Those snarling beings, charmingly arched, bleached backbones

 busily occupied… from Peru and Mexico and Santa Fe

All over,

Well, why go on

…those waters drown the unwary.

Oh, we can hope…

That they might flood through, clear a path.

Or even an over pass

Perhaps a mountain might rise up from this morass.

Chama Canyon, New Mexico

July 12, 2009

 __________________

CONFESSION

 

The divine Rumi has sung that it’s God in the groaning and laughter, expansive explosive embrace,

colliding, composing, de-constructive affections of the highest beaming glacial comets,

viscose morass of life in the universe,

in death that cannot be described from personal witness—

reflected upon

every twilight pond

into which we gaze.

 

But we can avert our eyes as well,

glance away at just the moment when our insight might save.

 

So, I have to assume that God may at times avert His gaze,

when I have failed to see Him in every glance, friendly or not, have failed to love as

He loves,

have complained about any or every experience

even though that is all there is

for me at

that moment,

at this opportunity for seeing God.

 

Thank God that such a divine attribute might also be

the heart of kindness and mercy

 

in us…[1]

Chama  Canyon

 


 

 

A Continuance May Be Granted…

 

The gate poles are down.  The corral is empty.

Images chuckle and nudge at ideas.

Ideas laugh at words.

Words simper and snigger (sometimes soar) before the Fecund Void–

Who keeps Its own counsel.

Who knows the hour and the day …

 08.2009

Chama Canyon, New Mexico

 

 

DIRT

Dirt is as common as it gets, but a little water makes it mud.  From mud one can make pies and isn’t that one of best things in the world!  Pies?

But dirt is everywhere.  I found it in Nepal and up in the Himalayas, California, Oklahoma, South America, Europe, China.  One might say that dirt is universal.  But, you don’t find dirt in the ocean.  Sand.  Plenty of  Sand.  And there is very fine sand rather like mud.

Dirt is where the earth meets our lives.  It’s where we walk.  It’s where we eat when life bites

or ends.

Think what its like to be dirt.

You might solve the climate crisis

______________________________________________________________

 

Now is the time for learning the wisdom of winds and streams

streets, boulevards and women.

Now is time

but soon

all will be –

only

a moment.

________________

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

 

In fact, once very young—a little kid

my face met two hardballs at once, baseballs. An Accident.

I was grounded for the count.  And I never had to play again.  Odd how things work out beneath that huge blue sky with its negligee,

its secret filter inherent in the viscose drama of births

light white mists

clouds of emotional content– moments that trade on trickeries slipping fast down the branch-

 

Moonlight wrapped limbs of sight

Catching the gen

of physics and how light excites even pebbles and stones

fox and quail alike.

But why wouldn’t I have to play again?

 

That’s considering how quail explode into the sky

Close as it can seem sometimes, allowing escape from earthbound teeth

Ravening jaw,

a foxy claw, picking beaks…

There wasn’t much that favored my education. But some times there were opportunities to run up a different gully,

– arroyo more moist with insight, most were dry, but even dry gravel reaches out in song.  Even now hunts around looking for me– and I for it.  Doesn’t seem like dry gravel would be hard to find, or a willing heart.

But then there’s gravel and then there’s gravel…

Didn’t want to play, and this ‘not playing any more’ was such a moist gully rich with secret mosses (and the fierce passions of plants.  Sacred Datura.  Lived with it.  Didn’t eat its poison.)  Can thank my mother for that, probably.  …not my brothers.  My father was tired of the whole topic by then, by the time I came up.  So, I thank my father for not doing, and Mom knows in her silent ways

how to win from defeat.

Always did.

Thank the Elohim.

 ***

Roger Clemens is being questioned in Congress today about

 performance-enhancing-drugs.  Plays ball.

Big thick fellow.  Hope he’s innocent like he says.  But still have to look to our interests.  Who’s going to care– do those big thick fellows? –who can tell what gravel and moss

have to tell?

Much less the fierce spirits?  Wind and Rain?  Katrina? Datura? Who will pay their toll?

Now that the northern most ice is melting…

 


 

Depression and Coffee Cake

…had a lovely little party last night.  now. tonight, there’s nobody around, its depressing.  how do i get stuck in these places!  Oh, yea, i have to do this work.  Hmmm…  then more patience seems required-  not forever, but for now I’ll drink it like morning coffee with sweet pastries!

 

Steve Frost

Spring, 2010


 

Green Buds

Hope again. Dare to.  Strange, the human capacity for moods.  States of awareness.  Spring turns, threatens joy, midst ice and frozen soil.  Conscious joy.

Green buds.  Thank the spirits and the Lords of Life.  It’s worth it just to look…

Waving lights of rosy white petals around our Capital.  Or here!  In this desiccated place.  Along the rivers wrapping our magic land like a present.

Electric green buds laugh their gray brown girdles off and follow the currents of dedicated reproduction.

 

Spring, 2010

Chama Canyon, New Mexico

 


 

 

TIME

I.

Time scrapes beneath one’s feet

crunching along a graveled path,

crashes waves on a pebbled beach

polishing the stones to a perfect wet sheen.

 

Time is a thief and a deceiver for it creates all stories

allows them to evolve and grow, then strips the bark from thirsty trees

and decomposes our remains.

 

Deposits what’s left in an account for future use, when we’ve hardly had a past.

 

Woe betides the observer to notice that one’s sight never moves.

Rather Vision is always watching–the inner eye or the ones external

weaving ideas and images to explain what moves

 

Movement takes place outside.  Change.  Time.  Its what’s seen that moves.

The Watcher remains behind.

 

 

II.

 

TRUTH IS A GOLDEN CHALICE

PERFECT FORM AND DIMENSION

GEMS TO DENOTE VARIATIONS AND QUALITIES

IN THE SUPPLE TEXTURES OF FORM AND LINE

VALUES—FROM LIGHT TO DARK—SHAPE, INTENSITY AND HUES–

CREATED FORM.  RUBIES FROM IMPRISONED BURMA FOR PASSION

THE ADAMATINE WAY IN DIAMONDS, UNBREAKABLE INSIGHT

EMERALDS ARE MORE CLEVER—MORE VIRILE

DEFINED BY INCLUSIONS AND OTHER FAULTS.

 

RIGORS OF MEDITATION, RITUAL, SHIFTING PANES, CRITICAL THOUGHT, THE OTHER WORLD OF INTENTIONS, INFLUENCE, PRESENSE;

PURE LAND, THE HOLY LAND–      ART.

 

 

III.

BEAUTY SWEEPS ALONG ITS RED CARPET SWISH

OF REGAL GARB,

‘CLAMMOUR’ INSPELLS AN EXCITED CROWD!

AND BEAUTY SLIPS AWAY…

 

FINDS, IN THE KINDLY EMBRACE OF WILLING SACRIFICE

NEW BORN, SWEET RELEASE, COMFORT

WRINKLED, OR CLAD IN FLEM AND SPUTEM

BREEDER OR BERDASHE

TRANSFORMS THE WORLD,

A GIFT

 

CAN BEAUTY BE

WITHOUT GOODNESS?

 

 

SLIVER SWIFT AND SILVER DOWN A BRANCH

THE RIVER RUNS

‘SILENT, DARK AND DEEP’

BOULDERS FORCED BY A FLASH

THEN THE FLOOD

 

CLEAN MIGHT BE

SOARING BETWEEN STARS

 

GOLD ETCHED UPON A BLACK GROUND

WHISPERS CLOUD, FOG CONCEALS

SWIRLING CLIMATE

 

WANDER ALOUD, ERR ALONE

LISTEN WIDELY

 

A SACRED SOUND

 

SPRING, 2010

 


 

Estatic Flora, Fauna, Spirit

230 [158] ECSTASIS: FLORA, FAUNA, SPIRIT- 7’8” X 3’ 7” -Acrylic on Canvas-

2010

The barren or virginal womb is the great symbol in the Scriptures of this impossible Void that is the source of all things– I.e. God, Godhead, or the ineffable ground of being.  Our lives as celibates are also the opportunity for impossible goodness to erupt from physically barren lives.  My interest explores and acknowledges the whole body of such observance before and after both Lords.”

 


 

Dear Sir or Madam,

Pretend you are drinking a cup of coffee somewhere with a sweet pastry, perhaps a cinnamon roll.  You are sitting at a little sidewalk table, slightly chilled such that hot coffee or tea is a treat.  You over hear a conversation from a nearby table, or are is it the quiet voice of an old hobo talking to himself, sitting on the sidewalk outside the rail:

… In my recollection, I give Athanasius credit for the sacramental vision of the Church.  It is of course, more complicated, but could one say that?

…it’s the visionary consciousness that interests me, as you know.  The maintenance of a vision of the Divine Spirit engaged in a world-light drenched and warmed by the curves in a line, forms allowed a third dimension. shapes that describe a breast fed baby and mists that disguise passage from the end of night’s inky blue, to aqua twilight’s turquoise-limpid acceptance of a new day.  Of course this changes with each evaluation armed education from Mother’s knee, such that there’s much potential for God’s insertion into one’s private space.  …and the tidal lays crashing around the world.

… that’s Art.  Clever people like Athanasius co-oped the insight and wove an ingenious spell of Sacraments- of populations and generations spun around a Stone Age idea/discovery/invention.  God, both intimate and illusive among such insights keeps going as impatient with only stillness as the rest of us.  So yes, Raimón and I are in communion with the See of Rome and the Ganga and the Sand Spirits between Mecca and Medina… But how does one unweave a spell when it becomes a Golem, a monster?  Is there a name for someone who unweaves a great spell?  It requires something more than a shaman or thaumaturge now…

__________________

 

So, Sir or Madam, do I have to be in a place like this monastery to unweave a spell, a great spell–Civilization having got to where we directed it in our schools and liturgies.  White magic whose light casts various shadows enough to engulf the world.[6]

_______________________________

[6] …And think of creation.  We are circling a black hole that is so powerful it holds our Sun in its orbit from such a vastly incomprehensible distance.  One milky galaxy among billions.  With no evidence but probability that there is a consciousness like ours anywhere.  It is a worthy endeavor to develop our line of awareness that includes kindness, compassion, generosity,  goodness and educated intelligence– as well as careful good sense.  What do you think?   The whole is precious as well as the individual…

Someone recently made the fairly normal comment that Philosophy is not Poetry in reference to my Animist leanings expressed a few days ago.   I agree of course.  Philosophy is limited to its one tool, reason or logic.  And a great thing that is.  Western civilization is enthralled by the notion that human reason encompasses everything.  This faith is so strong that it becomes a myth– some faith statement that one does not even question– for many.  However, emotion and intuition also help us evaluate reality.  Of course, that emotion cannot be corrupted by sentimentality or nostalgia, but must be characterized by clear, clean, strong sentiment.  And that intuition must be developed and honed by gift and training.  Careful distinctions need be made in such states as visionary consciousness, dreams, prayer, meditation, the many roomed mansion of the psyche, including a stolid dose of rationality.  Emotion can take us to in-depth appreciation of color, nuance and feeling that construct the experience of reality.  Reason, Science, the scientific method plays its part, but if pushed far enough has to admit that its limits stretch along the barbed and electrified fence of the tangible.   To go further requires a ‘shining through’ from the other side.

That being said, ‘sometimes the wind is just the wind.  But other times the wind is a communication from ineffable quarters of being.’  Thus, Creation is sacred not in itself but in its ineffable origin and because its Creator freely inhabits and animates creation as a parent or agent loves its offspring or intention.  The Spirit is so potent that its mere presence animates every cell of being with its personal character.  And reasonably, ‘innocent as a dove and clever as a serpent,’ the Spirit is not trapped by its own Creation.   Instead, the Elohim, ‘speak’ through its creatures not just one species alone.  

The Church should have no problem with this.  However, Real Estate agents and developers are another story and resist the notion that nature should not be profitable.  In a similar way, the slavery of fellow human beings has been justified for millennia by saying that the slave was not a person, a sacred being, but an investment.–  Something to be exploited.

 I doubt that we are far apart in this, so far…

 


 

Wake-

from the nap. Car parked cool against summer’s solstice sun.  Head lolls against closed window.  Eyes gaze up to maybe monsoon clouds

Form… compose with light, dove grey and light.  a way through

Years short of sleep.  Gaze to my destiny.  Suspect this might be enough. Pray

Blue behind the dove.  ‘Now and at the hour of our deaths.’

Sustain yes

Not time yet

soft orders given between the clouds

and the blue

What must be, can be, will be, can I, if i can…

Greatest conjuring, biggest presence yet.

Call for Seraphim and dragon’s teeth, gens loci.  Elohim.

Rainmaker, call the storm!

 Between Ghost Ranch and Chama Canyon, NM, 2010

 


 

 

 

Post Script:

 

Rev. Dr. Raimón Panikkar died 08.26.2010 at 5:30 P.M. –A father and guide, patron and protector for me, as well as world famous peritus.

I wrote this poem-originally DEATH GLINTS FROM WATERS AND WINGS-between 08.25-27. 2010 as Raimón died  (See also “Back-lit Grasses”, above.) before I was informed of his death on the 27th :

“New fry from the outskirts of a santa fe:

…light glints from waters and wings

Other things of  import harder to describe:  …languid, riparian grasses hang down to the swift currents. Seer sees through the grandeur of biology, the all-engaging imperatives of nature –we, biological creatures see though to liberation –majesty of kindest glories, and vision of distant persons–makes for a whole vision, experience bigger than galaxies, smaller than neutrinos and thinner than branes.

There’s beaver in the river.

The hermit and I talk.  There’s treasure there—no mold, rust or rot.

Grander than cranes– that blue crane, (was it a heron?) flew west when my father died

-gold and silver glinting along the slice of its wings

through

the

Ether.

08.25-27.2010 Santa Fe, New Mexico


 

[1] To continue about the topic of prayer, one must pierce the dimension of existence in order to engage the Divine Spirit.  While supporting the established order to raise children, avoid chaos, grow a vocabulary that one must go beyond, etc., personally must push beyond what can be known and find home in the ineffable.  If one wants to effect change, say for a friend or humanity, one needs to find a helpful spirit—a genius, gen, vocation…  The Holy Spirit is the best and the safest.  However, personal development is key.  One cannot separate the various aspects of one’s life:  ‘The Church and Mass over here.  My profession over there.  Family at the center.  The indepth substance, the realization of the ineffable, is the foundation.  The rest are the accidents of time and matter coming together to provide conscious moments interwoven such that ‘a life’ becomes apparent.  But that is utterly transitory.  What is consistent is the ground of the ineffable.  Break through to that and who knows what will happen.  I think your life has been a succession of epiphanies, unnoticed, or partially noticed but perhaps uniquely insightful. Science gives way before death.  One can see other bodies stop working.  But that is where one’s personal witness stops.  One cannot verify information beyond that.  And that is all Science is, a method for verifying information.  The issue of Truth is larger.  As difficult as the Church is, there is something in its Sacramental vision that expresses that largess.

 

Here’s a poem written for Georgia when we were down in the heat of S. Arizona:

After Compline,

We continue down a verdant middle way

Having stood in the hot shade

Of telephone poles

All the long road long

During enduring

the day.

Nearby, a furious, hot wasp

Is trapped

In a plastic shopping bag

With its putrefying cut of Safeway steak

At night

We fly between

Stars and high-wire dive

To deep rapids below

 

And wait for just the crepuscular

Moment to

 

‘stop the world.’

 

2003

Huachuca, Arizona

__________

 

When one ‘stops the world,’ one has realized consciousness as something ineffable, not hostile to, but other than time and matter.

 

Every kindness and peace,

 

Chama Canyon, New Mexico

July 16, 2009


 

 

 

Front Page Latin: This is part of a response to the principal hymn used in Vespers for Advent that goes back to the Sixth Century and is sung in the fourth tone. Following the hymn, the Versicle is

“Rorate Coeli de super, et nubes pluant justum.” “

Ye heavens, drop down dew from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.”

And the responsorial is

“Aperiatur terra et germinet Salvatorum”

“Let the earth open and bud forth the Savior.”