So
very many have passed beyond my reach before me, embossed with their
memory, given in confession of desires: the life they had wished to
live but did not.
Dear
friends/God forgive me I cannot remember names as much as the
emotions like cloud shadows passing over monumental faces, eyes
flickering in confident ecstasy or swimming in sorrow or fear. What
they were and by prayer will become far beyond my keen.
And
for now, in silent reverence, for they and those who with me stand
upon the cusp of time, I spin not Dervish but Prayer Wheel with some
more profoundly raised upon the glistening of my braille memory.
Changed irrevocably both they and me for no prayer is unanswered in
the flesh of time and nothing lost in eternity. We all die sometime,
somehow, and in death see the source more clearly; humiliated and
naked as we came so we go.
1544
Who
has not found the Heaven—below—
Will
fail of it above—
For
Angels rent the House next ours,
Wherever
we remove—
-
Emily Dickinson
Disclosure/Transparency:
I
did not intend to include the poem but discovered it between what
resides above and this. Faith is unique and inherent; or so I have
experienced in numerous dialogs. Given my reverence and homage for
The Author of all Creation. I am catholic. Finding my former belief
in shards. That small “c” is significant. It means that I give
equal credence to Islam, Buddhism, etc. More importantly to me is the
experience of God; not the idea.
In
the course of these recent hours, days, weeks, years: I have found
threads speaking the same intention, thoughts, longings across all
languages and all times, unbidden, (not specifically sought). I might
as well be gibbeted as a fool, sage or whatever. In converse with M,
last evening, I mentioned planting trees the shade or fruit of which
I will never see. When I had money I gave freely to resources that
offer education to all, but that was stolen from me, as my life might
be via the agency of violence growing daily in America the land of
the enslaved.
Instead,
I give of myself, no longer relatively ‘wealthy’ in material
ways. It may be that what I write are notes to those who have passed,
our children, in the universal sense of family. The friends and brief
acquaintances discovered everywhere.
Permutations
have been made in me and in consequence I have changed. Yet I can
change nothing outside myself and leave the world essentially as
found. In a sense, at seventy-two years of age I am still looking for
a Job Description while mentally young as I was at eighteen. I
remember that I’ll never Grow Up but am compelled to do so.
The
highest creation we can seek is ourselves in truth and love doing no
harm. I can no longer remain silent in the company of “Nones.” Or
those in whose company any mention of my resources would render me,
in their truth/judgment/perception: insane. What a sweet madness!
I
take myself not too seriously, humor being my best quality; always a
student of life. I will close here with another set of quotes
important to me:
"A
good poem is one in which the form of the verse and the joining of
its two parts seem light as a shallow river flowing over its sandy
bed."
"Do
not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they
sought." +f
"Every
day is a journey, and the journey itself is home."
"Nothing
in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die."
“The
temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the
flowers.”
"There
is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can
think that is not the moon." - Matsuo Basho
130405
03:48 beyond
©
2013 by Jack Spratt – All Rights Reserved
