“Write about God and this love,”
She requests
but of what do I write?
I softly protest.
What is the color
of Her absence?
what is the scent
of His breathlessness.
She is the weight of the path
pressed into the “soul” of my feet
taken by the hand,
led toward the heart
no sooner does She appear,
than I am left waiting,
wanting to depart
on the spiraling rise
of curiosity
of that which is beyond the horizon
of our earthbound reasoning.
I’ve burned my lips
speaking Your ninety-nine names,
just to recoil to the well of my heart to sip
Your cool waters, and soothe the searing pain;
In my quest to quench this thirst
I sweat tears into the soil
as I dig beneath the earth
yet ’tis tears which make the waters…
the waters for which I search.
This is my toil.
This is why You came.
This is what drives me,
this is what explains.
This is the desire to fall in love again.
Is it the heat or is it the fire?
To whom does this quest pertain,
do I seek Her shade in the heat of the moment,
or search His bellows to fan the consuming flame?
What leads me toward Your secrets?
Is it the eloquence of my questions
uttered in my sleep,
or the promise of Your answers
beyond my woken reach?
Oh, both
are tricks of dreams.
Awakened to God’s whisper,
“Khamosh,”
this is what I hear.
In the morning shadows of tiny hours,
’tis Her gentle nudge
that pushes me
from the lofty tower
of the mind,
and I fall
to the depths of my soul
dissolved in the source of Her blessed call.
We cannot return to the precipice
after we’ve leapt from the edge of the cliff,
entrusting our fate to gravity,
We hurl toward the hollows
of destiny,
so
may we surrender all our fractured religions
along the way
to the Master of one Religiosity.
Let us be mad as we fall into this;
pray, go softly as we land
growing wings for flight
through the abyss.
Oh, the power of a metaphor
is the latitude in a voice
heard with a diversity of meaning
poetry is among the longitudes of choice.
In this crazy tavern,
the truth is painted by the tongue
and heard in the colors of our ears.
Poetry pours the wine that slakes
but we are drunk on confusion
not the fermented grape.
There’s a key in our heart
to the lock which protects it
we wait for a turn, a tumble
the rhythmic click.
Writing of God and love is the realization
that the truth of beauty
is the beauty of truth,
only unlocked by those
captured within their own heart’s creation.
