From Stillness

Landscape photographs birth bird flight

Gnarly trees leaning from the invisible wind

Until the wind drops

The bird stops

and becomes the photograph once more.

But if I look closer,

Really look and feel into what’s real

There’s a sense of stillness

in the bird’s flight too.

There’s no movement

Just presence

and it’s clear that the two

are the same.

Reaching, longing

to get ‘that’ back again.

It’s easier nowadays

To ‘notice’

Not ‘look for’

But still, ‘looking for’ happens.

Until it doesn’t.

And when it doesn’t,

I see that states and thoughts

and words and happenings pass.

Arise, and go.

Movement

No movement

Marks on and out of stillness.

But this stillness;

Eternal, ever-here, ever now

Does not arise

Or fall, or change.

And this

Is what I am.

This violent fear
Of showing you my truth
No longer holds me, dear.

I was you once.
Breath crystal fresh
Diamond sparks from granite
And I was gone
And I knew I had never been here.

Once, once you teased
As tired fruitless years
Threatened permanent erosion of hope
Then all was silence
And silence revealed simple, marvelous everything.

Time illusory
At once that and this inseparable
All completely as it should be, must be.
The universe conspired to align for this moment.
And this moment. And this. This.

You cursed me once
As garrison returned with tiny needles
Pinpricks of ‘have’
Bruises of ‘keep’
Hope, doubt, worry

I cried for you once.
Demons disguised
Beliefs, lies
Riptide, grasping
Slipping, reaching, reaching…

I lost you once.
Cloud mind.
Don’t leave me.
A tear.
Despair.
I.

I saw you once.

Now, beloved,
Years of searching, sitting, thinking, wishing
Must end this moonless night,
I have no more left
But my exhausted, disillusioned self.

Take it, beloved,
Take all I’ve learnt,
Seen, heard, discovered, imagined
Written on tainted parchment with dried hands,
Building false idols of copper thought before an altar of green delusion.

Beat me, beloved,
Cascades of razor blows fall down on my fragile image
That which I call mine can not be what I am
It must go, I offer it all
No pain too great, no loss enough

Destroy me, beloved,
Hold me in the scorching fires of your love
Cover my chapped mouth lest I scream
But I beg you hold me there
For I know that I am, but I am not that which is scorched

Cradle me, beloved,
While my tears sting wounds,
Blessed relief
Ending tales of struggle
Ending tales of pain, tales of joy

Release me, beloved,
Let this precious moment
Fly free of all desire for more than this
Blessed this, relinquish all else to now
As we laugh the laugh of those who have nothing to fear, and nothing to lose.