the pendulum swings
from 'White is good' to 'White is bad'
and back again
the crowd cheering and jeering in jest
rhythmic osculations of duality
hypnotize me into
a trance of separation
that flattens fractal dimensions
into cookie-cutout identities
so simple and sweet my holy longing
is hijacked in addiction
chips of histories, bittersweet
trails of tears, frozen streaks
stain the land
that would sustain me
who was pained
and who awakens
in the morning light
with warm skin
and peppery cacao?
what perceptions pin reality
like a tiger caught beneath a fallen tree?
may I,
dare we,
walk free?
like a dancing leaf—
apparent personality
fed and moved by cosmic breath,
still grounded
exhaling into the Earth.
perhaps it is time we learn
with humility
how the melting glacier's
death gives birth
to the sun's shimmerings
on an alpine lake.
my prayer
today and for this age
is to not judge others
by the color of their skin
by the shape of their identity
not even by their awareness
or lack thereof
I forgive us our flailing grabs at love
our entitled wounds demanding address
our inconsiderate raping
of women and Earth
our domination and killing
of innocent people
because I know the pain
who writes the script
and the lonely actor who loses himself
for the sake of adoration
I too have killed for love.
I have mistaken sex for worthiness.
I have manipulated the vulnerable and
abused my power to prevent
lack and aloneness
from annihilating myself.
And I also sense the end of this story
the dark void might dissolve myself
but it is no end that is not also the beginning
the very thing I most feared
is what I have most sought
in eons of disconnection and confusion
fear in its repulsion and desire in its outflow
point the way through opposites
craving and aversion
of mind.
sit still my child
and know you are God
unknowable perhaps
but knowing unknowing
allows knowing of all
in accepting our trials
and my old karmic tries for Self
I do not condone or allow
others to harm myself or my friends
I stand, I fight, I cry, I sing
for truth for freedom for presence for love
life after life I swim for the shore
not just for myself but for all of my selves
for you, your mother, and our child
interlocking, interweaving forms filled with love
like Mozart's notes, different and connected,
downloaded, bit by bit, like a Zip drive
from the source of all things.
I know not who I am
or who you are
And yet I know
who we are not.
I am not deceived
nor so intoxicated
with form
to lose awareness of play
arising from spacious nothing
Nor am I so enamored with my own religion
that I cease to enjoy the ecstatic flow of mystery
in and through the world.
I hope to join you again
one day under a starry sky
or in song around a campfire
or tending to the wounds of war
It matters not so much where or when we meet
or on which dusty road we fall in love
I only hope we remember
our connection
inherent in the One
who dreams...