It is To Dream

Day’s echoes fade,
But still I lie, unable
To drift away.

When finally I awaken near dawn,
With images fresh
From another world,
I resent it;

Why does it pull me so?
Is that other world better than this?

This strange World of Day, so little changing,
Hard as rock in it’s demands
and expectations.

Again I’m asked,
To wash clothes,
Pay bills,
Make money,

And follow rules,
Not of my own making.

Or are they?

In night-time’s world I sometimes know,
That it is I who builds it:
The curtain parts.

Day-time’s world has thicker curtains,
Yet –
At times it is given me to see:

I ask to serve, and
There you are,
Needful of a lift.

And a few loose phrases,
That I heard this morning,
Bouncing in my head:
Now come unbidden
From my own mouth.

Witness I am,
Or so I’d thought.
As first I struggled to know;

But now I wonder if,
The Reason I am drawn
To this World of Day,
Is any different from the Night’s:

-- It is To Dream
That I Am Compelled.


--------------------------

Alan Montgomery
September, 2006

Witness

Sometimes the mountain

is hidden from me in veils

of cloud, sometimes

I am hidden from the mountain

in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,

when I forget or refuse to go

down to the shore or a few yards

up the road, on a clear day,

to reconfirm

that witnessing presence.

Denise Levertov

Every morning I walk

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky—as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.

- Mary Oliver

We are as the flute

We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.

We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!

Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee?

We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.

We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.

Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!

Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being.

- Rumi

'I Am Wind, You are Fire'

O you who've gone on pilgrimage -
where are you, where, oh where?
Here, here is the Beloved!
Oh come now, come, oh come!
Your friend, he is your neighbor,
he is next to your wall -
You, erring in the desert -
what air of love is this?
If you'd see the Beloved's
form without any form -
You are the house, the master,
You are the Kaaba, you! . . .
Where is a bunch of roses,
if you would be this garden?
Where, one soul's pearly essence
when you're the Sea of God?
That's true - and yet your troubles
may turn to treasures rich -
How sad that you yourself veil
the treasure that is yours!

- Rumi 'I Am Wind, You are Fire'
Translation by Annemarie Schimmel

Remember God

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
Be lost in the Call.


- Rumi

Tiny Being Saved by Giant God-Creature

I saw a beautiful spider web, glowing in the sun. Thought it would make a nice photo, so I grabbed the camera and wandered over.
What do I see but a small dragonfly, hanging by a single thread.
So, I plucked him off and chatted him up. After pulling off the big pieces, the remaining problem was one remaining sticky thread, wrapped around his wing, like you'd put a tie around a scroll.
Seemed a simple solution: just pull off or cut off that thread. - But the the entire diameter of the rolled wing was only maybe 2 or 3 millimeters. My finger wasn't going to do it - not going to fit into that 2-millimeter slot.
After a while, he suggested that I might use the blade of my little key-chain knife, which has a nice angular point. I agreed.
He was a bit concerned at first, and pulled away. Finally, with a little bravery on his part, and some careful juggling on mine, we managed to slice the cable.
His wing spread out full after a bit, then he just rested.

I felt tongue-tied.

It seemed there should be more to say.

It took him longer than I thought it should, but finally, I just lifted my hand, and he flew off.


I wondered about what I'd done.
How many smaller creatures would be eaten by this one, as a result of my act?


Of what use, compassion?

Some Playthings

A trembling brown bird
standing in the high grass turns
out to be a blown

oakleaf after all.
Was the leaf playing bird, or
was it "just" the wind

playing with the leaf?
Was my very noticing
itself at play with

an irregular
frail patch of brown in the cold
April afternoon?

These questions that hang
motionless in the now-stilled
air: what of their

frailty, in the light
of even the most fragile
of problematic

substances like all
these momentary playthings
of recognition?

Questions that are asked
of questions: no less weighty
and lingeringly

dark than the riddles
posed by any apparent
bird or leaf or breath

of wind, instruments
probing what we feel we know
for some kind of truth.

- John Hollander

Hokusai Says

Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says everything is alive -- shells, buildings, people, mountains, trees.
Wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn't matter if you draw, or write books.
It doesn't matter if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn't matter if you sit at home and stare at the ants on your veranda,
Or the shadows of the trees and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.
He says don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you...

- Excerpted Poem by Roger Keyes ~ Petersburg, AK