Beside the stones,
The rain
Intones
The song of the evening star;
There lies the derailed car
Of arrogance
Fallen, still
In the hour of reckoning.
Mother of the Rising Light
Not far away,
As they were wont to say,
But near,
As the breath of moonbeams. On the horizon
Of unmarked time, the stray
And wayward galaxy,
By a kind fate,
Has escaped the dreary, dismal chain
Of bondage,
That lurks at the sharp edge
Of being.
Every light,
Every shining.
Here the beginning
And the ending
And the beginning anew;
Here the enduring flame,
The bells of Shiva
That ring long
In the never-ending
Standing
In cool water where
The summer crane
Slowly goes,
At ease
Among the lilies,
And, on high, the hawk will view
The Himalayan snows.
Abaya mudra,
Fear not.
Though the wraith
Of this current world feeds only
On lies,
Deception,
And distain,
Across the unwise
Plot
Of terror,
With no faith
And, seeking stolen redemption,
Finds bitter loss.
But look to the spring sleet
Shimmering on the raven’s wing.
See the unseeable, cloaked in mist;
Now how to remember to walk through
The fires
Of truth and through
The spires
Of nevermore
On feet
Impelled by grace.
Atman
By the fence post of wood
By the boundary
By the old, unpainted gate,
Stood
Waiting.
No time, no space.
You know they covered over
Gobekli Tepe
To prevent a desecration
Of the Holy Light
That never dims,
That is known by no name.
Grace
Of the One,
The Green Heart of the forest, deepening,
The One who spoke earlier,
In the still air,
Or,
In clouds rent
By winds that toss
The tree limbs
Of the dawn that awoke — though not yet.
The silver-sailing moon knows
The primeval bones
That hid
An intent,
Unbidden, but not unwise,
Bones that slumber
In the rustling sighs under the leaves on the floor
Of the grove,
Buried, but not forgotten,
Silent,
Sacred.
And now – after a time, with the passing
Of the sunset
Beyond the darkened road,
Scarred and malevolent,
All is changed, rising,
When the geese
Fly
Anew,
Bright-
Winged, here
By the bent
Hill
Of the green-toed
Mountain of peace,
Sent,
Just there
In the sparkle
Of the dew
To awaken.
Listen
Hear only the bells of Shiva
In the silence
Beyond the dissonance
Of this world, only the bells of Shiva
Ringing in the ever-drifting rain,
Singing.
Written in the spring of 2020.
© Sharon St Joan, 2020