And Beyond Belief

If I believed it to be thus, would the sun rise
In the west tomorrow?
Or if I believed it to be so, would the lilies bloom
On the dark side of the moon?

Truth,
Here stands truth,
Unconquered and unsubjugated,
Beyond belief and disbelief of man.
And in our knowing and unknowing
We are bound to it irreversibly.

Wherever You are

I live as one lives in a cave unmarked by lines of latitude and longitude:
A cave inside a cave which is my mind.
I live as one lives as naked as a vowel without knowing east from west.
I invent words to name the day I have not lived and let
The twilight erase them with a gesture.
I live in the cave of my mind with nothing but syntax of deep silence.
All day long, I listen to the silence, trespassing in the rooftop of my thoughts.
Confusion is clarity in the dark. I have no name to hide behind.
And, I am transparent without definition.
If I do not speak, it is because I know you can hear my silence.
I have no language to tell you that I love you.
And you do not have the need to hear me say that,
For, you know the weight of a butterfly suspended in its flight.
I do not want to pay the unacceptable price for happiness at all cost.
All I want to do is to collect the dust that rise in your wake,
And, fill them in an hour-glass to mark my time with you,
Walking in your footsteps.
Wherever you are, O Lord, you are everywhere.

Francis Goes to Heaven

It seems,
Out of each heartbeat he was recreated,
And again,
As a dove in an eagle’s feathers.
An eagle
Flying high inside the dome of cage,
Blindfolded and confined.
It was always a matter of time.
For who could keep it thus forever
When it could set the whole forest on fire
With its songs?

Who would have known this?
It seemed like only yesterday!
A man carved out of the rocks of Assisi!
A man setting foot on the roads of Assisi!

With each exhaling and inhaling,
He shed his cloaks of fine linen,
One by one, breath by breath,
Till there was nothing left;
Nothing but the vast and naked
Snow-covered plains of Assisi.

Here is Francis of Porziuncola,
Made uncontainable.
Here is Francis of Assisi,
Set ablaze by love.
Here is Francis of the infinite elements,
Fire, water, everything else and love.
How can a flame be not flamboyant
With so much fire in its wings?

Francis,
Who sings with birds of the air and beasts of the forests,
In one voice which is equal to sum of all silence and
Sum of all creations,
Ignited by love,
Wounded by mercy,
Enriched by poverty,
Hand in hand with his lady love,
Ascends the stairway to heaven;
Barely touching the ground.

My Search Ends at Your Doorstep

These days, I often think of thinking about serious and important thoughts.
And I search for ways to find what I am thinking. In this new enterprise of mine,
I find myself walking alone in the forest. And I am so obsessed that I even let
My past catch up with me. I am glad that they bother to show up. So that
I could ask them a few questions of really genuine importance.

I allow loneliness to drizzle like rain so that I can ask them too.
What is that I want to know from the lichens and the moss?
What is it that I want to differentiate a tree from a stone?
How does an inverted circle look like? Can a man love others
Without loving himself?

But when I ask them the questions, none would stick with me.
They would fall behind me one after another
Pretending to be lost in deep thoughts of their own.
I did not care if they stuck with me or fell behind me.
I kept walking in the midst of my solitude.
I wanted to get at the edge of all questions before the nightfall.
I am in haste. There is too little time and too few hours in a day.
There are too many things I wanted to make friends with.
There are too many friends I wanted to break bread with.
This way I arrive from one part of my past to another without knowing
What I need to know and without finding what I need to find.

In the middle of my solitary walk if I happen to see
A horned-bill woodpecker pecking away at the dead wood,
I instantly find a kindred spirit in him. I feel he is also after something;
Perhaps, a lost dream or two. But he is too busy to tell me his thoughts.
So I instantly grow a pair of beautiful wings and become a woodpecker.
I too begin pecking at the pages of old and unread trunks of dead trees.
I file away what I find under my feather and plumes.
But they are not what I am looking for.
They are not as important to me as the sun is to a newly germinating seed.
If I had wanted, I could continue to be Gabriel the weaver or so and so.
I could have continued to weave beyond the end of the street.
I could have learned just as much that way without being a woodpecker.

So this way and that way, I move from one dry well to another, and, finally,
Arrive at your doorpost with an empty pail, thirsty and hungry;
Still not knowing what to say when I come face to face with you, O Lord!

Heaven Inc.

(Industry: Savings and Love; Corporate Headquarter: 1 Mercy lane)

Heaven Inc.
A blue chip company
With strong fundamentals
And solid balance sheet.

For those looking to invest,
Heaven Inc. is a company
With an earning not so modest.

Known as the Ten Commandments
Their corporate law of governance
Has no history of amendment.

Sometime after 30 AD,
To suit the new millennial investors,
The company underwent restructuring;
Their strength being love and mercy.

The trading symbol used to be OT
Back in the day when Moses was the VP.
Well, now it is traded under NT.

You can buy them shares directly.
You can sell them shares openly.
You don’t pay them no commission,
And you don’t suffer no omission.

The brokers are on their wings
Always ready to place your bids
If you decide to give them a ring.

Telephone lines are open 24/7,
With a customer service
Always prompt and friendly.
They are only a prayer away
If you need their help in any way.

It is a solid company wheeling and dealing,
In an economy which is wide and spreading.

With operations in the far-flung markets of the universe
It has undergone many stock-splits many times over.

All over the world there are many analysts
And Heaven Inc is always in their buy lists.

You do not need a financial adviser,
Because, it never has a bad year.
You can put your trust in the CEO
And invest your money in his portfolio.
And you will never be sorry that you did.

Your return will multiply,
And soon you will realize,
That there is a hundredbagger
In your portfolio!

Are you looking for a way to save up
For your years in golden eternity?
Then consider investing in Heaven Inc.
You will be glad you did.

Heaven Inc.
Our Service is saving soul;
Our strength is people;
And we are located on 1 Mercy Lane.

One and the same

“To see the world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.” – W. Blake from “Auguries of Innocence”

“The child is the father of the Man.”-- W. Wordsworth from “My heart leaps up when I behold”

“……Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.” --Jn. 14: 8

St. Francis of Assisi said

Start doing what is necessary; and then do the possible; and suddenly you find yourself doing the impossible!

Speak little
Learn the words of eternity.
--Rumi

Rumi on Humility

Enter the ruins of your heart
And learn the meaning of humility.

On the Heights of Calvary

For many,
It begins here,
Upon this very mountain,
Upon Calvary,
A journey.

A river also begins,
As if from an undiscovered fountain,
“To run towards the world,”
Towards itself,
A crucifix.

Upon this new Calvary,
Upon this banquet table,
Upon the altar,
We break the bread of flesh,
We pour the wine of blood.

In breaking of the bread,
We take up our own crown of thorns.
In drinking of the wine,
We climb upon the cross.

On the cross with Him,
We hang, in spirit,
On the other side.

In dying, we die with Him
In rising, we rise with Him
Clothed in new body and
Crowned with new spirit.

(The expression “To run towards
the world” is borrowed from
Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valtorta)

Conversion

To spread the chromatogram of thought across
A meadow of electricity.
To rearrange the bisected hemispheres of the earth
Into time without its days and nights, and
Into space without dimensions.
To transform the evening moon into
A butterfly, luminous and flying across the sky of dreaming.
Conversion, a bird of prey hunting for an idiom
In the vertigo of riddles and paradox, and to resurface
As the morning star with crown of flame amidst darkness.

A Poem

Upon this cross is hammered a poem,
A limitless poem for the undead.
Upon this poem is written a lamentation,
A limitless lamenting for a sparrow fallen.
Poetry,
Where will you go from here?
What is your message?
What would you say to
“The land of Zebulun and Naphtali
On the road by the sea
Across the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles?” (Mt. 4: 15)
Repent!

Repent,
To rekindle that extinguished nebula,
To rebuild those decrepit boulevards.
Or, would you sit
By the rivers of Babylon
To weep and mourn,
And mourn and lament, without stopping?
Lament!
To refresh,
That faded summer of marigold,
To renew,
That withered sunflower of hope.

Repent, lament and mourn!
The hour of rejoicing approaches,
The hour of comforting approaches.
Rejoice!
Unto us a child is born,
Unto us the earth has been given, as our inheritance,
And the City of God rises out of blood and dust.

After all that
Rejoicing and lamenting,
In the end,
We find in you,
The unwritable Word,
Written on the expanse of ancient papyrus,
The unutterable Word,
Uttered with the ancient sound of silence.

Poem!
Stay here awhile with me.
I need to lament with your voice,
I need to weep with your tears,
To repaint the faded summer of marigold,
To walk these boulevards in the City of God,
And out of blood and dust, the City of God rising!

Poetry

At what depth of the ocean,
From which root of the sea,
Were you born?
From which block of marble,
With what chisel
Were you carved?
With what tender feather of words,
With what slender snowflake of quill,
With what shade of colored ink
Were you written?

You are neither straight nor winding.
Unknown fruit of the ancient tree!
Unforgotten flower of midnight sun!

I do not know when you will arrive,
Or when you will leave.
I have learnt not to know you
Between your arrival and departure.
I have tutored myself not to think,
Not to think about you between those waking hours.
You often leave me without telling me,
Without telling me that you are not returning.
I can let you go just as easily as
I welcome you in the dark void of mind.
But I would rather have you with me for a good deal.
Not having you with me makes my day grey and long.

Poetry,
In what ancient cave were you created?
In what cultured city were you brought up
That you are at once within and outside
My fractional understanding?

If you try to plant your roots in my breast
I will not protest, and without protesting
I will let you do to me what spring does
To the lily of the field.
I have lived with you
Without knowing you.
I have loved you
Without understanding you.
I have kissed your honeyed words,
And dreamt your winged forms.
You are more beautiful
In that veil of opaque transparency.
So, let me love you without knowing you
And let me spell you out without speaking.