Before any of the worlds began,
Before the wind spoke,
Before thought or word came to be,
The first flowers awoke
And opened their lilac eyes to scan
The delicate drift of wandering mist
Lilies in the earliest light,
In the dewdrops shining before
The sun could ride
Across the wide
Sky,
Before the moon and the stars could sail
Over the mountain,
Only flowers were there then,
On the hillside,
With leaves of emerald,
Stems warm in the earthen soil,
Petals unfolding into jewels of amethyst
Rose, gold, and green,
The blue lotus opalescent in the rains of dawn,
Only flowers,
Not much more –
And also all and every living soul,
Unseen,
Who are the one eternal soul,
Now, after the eldest cities from the farthest lands
Are gone
The way of the deeps,
Where the scale of the fish gleams
In the indigo waters,
By the graves
Of artifacts unfound,
Lost by the daughters
Of the dark-gowned
Orb of the moon,
With so little culled
From toil
In the time-worn sands,
All the ages gone
In the shifting winds of samsara
In the end,
Do you wonder what might be or why?
Soon,
All will fold up again
Into the rain-winged mist,
Into the peace of the flowering bowers
Of Brahman –
Narayana, soul of the stars and the song-told tale
Of the sacred tree,
Narayana, the one who sleeps,
And sometimes dreams,
In the bright,
Blossoming waves,
On the folded coil
Of Adi Shesha,
By the rock-lit shoal
Of the ever-sounding sea.
© 2015, Sharon St Joan
Photo: © Vizafoto / dreamstime.com