A Great Wagon

When I see your face, the stones start spinning.

You appear. All studying wanders.

I lose my place.

Water turns pearly.

Fire dies down and does not consume.

In your presence I do not want

what I thought I wanted,

those three little hanging lamps.

Inside your face the ancient manuscripts

seem like rusty mirrors.

You breathe, and new shapes appear.

The music of a desire as widespread as spring

begins to move like a great wagon.

Drive slowly.

Some of us walking alongside are lame.

Inside a Country Dialect

A human being is like the rod

Moses held or the words

that Jesus said.

The outer is just a piece of wood,

or mouth-sounds of a country dialect,

whose inner parts can divide

the green ocean and make the dead

sit up and smile.

You see the far-off tents

of an encampment. You go closer.

There is a dust-shape, someone walking near.

Inside that, a man, bright eyes

and the strength of his presence.

When Moses returns from the wilderness

where he has gone alone,

Mount Sinai begins to dance.

The Flower's Eye

Find me near the flower's eye

that takes in provocation

and begins to grow.

Love is a baby that struggles

and fights, stops nursing, then runs out

through the door, escaping as a fire

jumping to the next burn.

The Nothing of Roselight

Death comes, and what we thought

we needed loses importance.

The living shiver, focused

on a muscular dark hand,

rather than the glowing cup it holds

or the toast being proposed.

In that same way love enters

your life, and the I, the ego,

a corrupt, self-absorbed king,

dies during the night.

Let him go.

Breathe cold new air,

the nothing of roselight.

Your First Eyes

A lover has four streams inside,

of water, wine, honey, and milk.

Find those in yourself and pay no attention

to what so-and-so says about such-and-such.

The rose does not care

if someone calls it a thorn, or a jasmine.

Ordinary eyes categorize human beings.

That one is a Zoroastrian. This one a Muslim.

Walk instead with the other vision given you,

your first eyes. Bow to the essence

in a human being. Do not be content

with judging people good and bad.

Grow out of that.

The great blessing is that Shams

has poured a strength into the ground

that lets us wait and trust the waiting.

Painting found here.

The Healing Presence

 A Beggar with a Wooden Leg, by Rembrandt van Rijn


I go to the one who can cure me and say,

I have a hundred things wrong. Can you combine them to one?

I thought you were dead. I was, but I caught your fragrance

again, and came back to life.

Gently, his hand on my chest.

Which tribe are you from? This tribe.

He begins to treat my illness.

If I am angry and aggressive, he gives me wine.

I quit fighting. I take off my clothes.

I lie down. I sing in the circle of singers.

I roar and break cups, even big jars.

Some people worship golden calves.

I am the mangy calf who worships love.

The healing presence has called me from the hole I hid in.

My soul, if I am agile or stumbling, confused

or in my true being, it is all you.

Sometimes the sleek arrow.

Other times a worn leather thumbguard.

You bring me where everything circles.

Now you put the lid back on the wine vat, pure quiet.

Etching found here

A Grape

If you would say I don't exist,

I would be grateful.

When this longing makes me disreputable,

then I have a little self-respect.

A vine begins to become wine

when you say, Pressure is necessary

to burst open.