How You Are with Me

God spoke to Moses,

You are the one I have chosen,

and I love you.

Moses replies, I feel the generosity,

but say what it is in me

that causes your love.

God explains, You have seen a little child with its mother.

It does not know anyone else exists.

The mother praises or scolds,

a little slap perhaps,

but still the child reaches 

to be held by her.

Disappointment, elation,

there is only one direction

that the child turns.

That is how

you are with me.

Your Features

The light you give off

did not come from a pelvis.

Your features did not begin in semen.

Do not try to hide inside anger

radiance that cannot be hidden.

I, You, He, She, We

I, you, he, she, we.

In the garden of mystic lovers

these are not true distinctions.

Sheba's Throne (2)

Solomon saw that her heart was open to him

and that the throne would soon be left behind.

Let her bring it, he said.

It will soon become a lesson to her.

She can look at that throne

and see how far she has come.

In the same way God keeps the process

of generation constantly before us.

The smooth skin and the semen,

the wet of desire and the growing embryo.

When you see a pearl on the bottom,

you reach through the foam and the broken sticks

on the surface. When the sun comes up,

you forget about the problem of locating 

the constellation of Scorpio.

Inside the splendor of union,

the attractions of duality seem poignant

and lovely, but much less interesting.

Sheba's Throne (1)

When the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon,

she left behind her kingdom and her wealth,

the same way lovers leave their reputations.

Her servants meant nothing to her,

less than a rotten onion.

Her palaces and orchards, so many piles of dung.

She heard the inner meaning of LA: No.

She came to Solomon with nothing, except her throne.

As the writer's pen becomes a friend,

as the tool the workman uses day after day

becomes deeply familiar, so her filigreed throne

was her one attachment.

It was a large throne and difficult to transport,

because it could not be taken apart,

being as cunningly put together as the human body.

A Small Green Island

There is a small green island

where one white cow lives alone, a meadow of an island.

The cow grazes till nightfull, full and fat,

but during the night she panics

and grows thin as a single hair.

What shall I eat tomorrow? There is nothing left.

By dawn the grass has grown up again, waist-high.

The cow starts eating and by dark

the meadow is clipped short.

She is full of strength and energy, but she panics

in the dark as before and grows abnormally thin overnight.

The cow does this over and over,

and this is all she does.

She never thinks, This meadow has never failed

to grow back. Why should I be afraid every night

that it won't. The cow is the bodily soul.

The island field is this world where that grows

lean with fear and fat with blessing, lean and fat.

White cow, don't make yourself miserable

with what's to come, or not to come.

Half-Heartedness

Gamble everything for love,

if you are a true human being.

If not, Leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness does not reach

into majesty. You set out

to find God, but then you keep

stopping for long periods

at mean-spirited roadhouses.