Within the masks of Maya

T.Voekler This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Wikipedia 1024px-Sacred_lotus_Nelumbo_nucifera

 

What is – and who?

 

Within the age-worn masks of maya

 

There is only the one,

 

Where the clouds slip over the blue

 

Skies

 

Like white kites, wind-blown,

 

Scattering –

 

Then

 

Gone.

 

In the midnight

 

Before the dawn

 

History’s nightmares of desecration

 

Crack like jack hammers –

 

Then they have flown,

 

Away,

 

Gone

 

By the hour

 

Of moonrise,

 

When

 

Only the deep desert remains,

 

Only the ethereal,

 

Wise stones,

 

Only the clarity

 

Of the presence that never wanes,

 

Only the one

 

Who becomes all beings, and

 

Who by day

 

Sings within the luminous song

 

Of the cactus wren,

 

Perching where the wind stirs

 

On the high pine bough,

 

Overlooking the shifting sand

 

Of the shore,

 

Strewn with bitter bones,

 

The fading fires of empire;

 

There is only the one who shines in the white

 

Petal

 

Of the dogwood tree,

 

Tipped on the cliff-height;

 

Or who looks through each of the thousand,

 

Awakening emerald eyes

 

Of the cobra,

 

Drifting from cosmic wave to wave,

 

Never to settle

 

For long

 

On the rolling, green-winged sea,

 

The many-hooded cobra – the couch for Narayana,

 

While he is dreaming now

 

And evermore;

 

There is everywhere only the one,

 

Only the single

 

Flower,

 

Brave,

 

The unfolding power,

 

Brahman,

 

Within all the many, mist-blown masks of maya.

 

© Sharon St Joan, 2019

 

Photo credit: T.Voekler / This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Wikipedia 1024px-Sacred_lotus_Nelumbo_nucifera.jpg

Leave a Reply