The willows’ golden budded branches brim in the winter air.
There is fire –even in winter, even when my heart here
cannot remember the way of Love.–The road curves round
taking me to where I have been, and in the bend,
the willows’ golden budded branches brim.
19 February 1999
Namaste
“I honor the place in you
where the entire Universe resides.
I honor the place in you
of love, of light, of truth, of peace.
I honor the place within you where
if you are in that place in you,
and I am in that place in me,
there is only one of us.”
I’m a perfect example
of the kind of person I am
An utter idiot
looking endlessly into your eyes
We want to ride together some waves of delight
but our bubbles pop & we’re shooting stars
There’s a moment of feeling ridiculous
Our love is a light we like to leave on
I love you as you love me
& you don’t find that scary
Is that a warmth or a tingling
making its way slowly up your spine?
I feel something in you matching the chill
crawling up mine
Love has ripped our realities open again
Every cell in my body has free will
that’s how I come to love you so freely
It’s the sympathetic magic
of ordinary things coming together
to become extraordinary
We’re involved in ways we can’t imagine
I have no idea for instance
what’s flowing in a flower besides water
or making a bird cry
out its name until we start calling it that
We become the breath of life
inhaling lifetimes of wounded desire
What were we just talking about?
I’m always talking about you
no matter what the words say
We circle the sky like two birds
who fell out of their nests together
& now are lighter than air
Watch what you long for burn you
I thought I was well done
but next to you
I’m just a raw soul
You satisfy my longing
as nothing else can do
If work is a form of worship
we work together well
When I was lost & broke
you found me & made me whole
When I was shut closed
you unlocked me & opened my passageways
I close my eyes with a deep breath
to concentrate on feeling everything you touch
but they only fly open
to lie on you a spell
I smell you all over me
My one desire is to breathe with you
until the day I die
Words are bubbles
breaking on the surface
of silence
Words are the tools of ignorance
Remember the love songs we sang
long before we knew any words for language?
Take every bit of my love my love
I’m just happy to see you making it a paradise
Love isn’t what the words say
What of it?
Go on singing
When the mind’s very being is gone,
Sunk in a conscious sleep,
In a rapture divine and deep,
Itself in the Godhead lost:
It is conquered, ravished, and won!
Set in Eternity’s sweep,
Gazing back on the steep,
Knowing not how it was crossed –
To a new world now it is tossed,
Drawn from its former state,
To another, measureless, great,
Where Love is drowned in the Sea.
Thou, Jubilus, the heart dost move;
And makest us sing for very love.
The Jubilus in fire awakes,
And straight the man must sing and pray;
His tongue in childish stammering shakes,
Nor knows he what his lips may say;
He cannot quench nor hide away
That Sweetness pure and infinite.
The Jubilus in flame is lit,
And straight the man must shout and sing;
So close to Love his heart is knit,
He scarce can bear the honeyed sting;
His clamor and his cries must ring,
And shame forever take to flight.
The Jubilus enslaves man’s heart –
A love-bewildered prisoner –
And see! his neighbors stand apart,
And mock the senseless chatterer:
They deem his speech a foolish blur,
A shadow of his spirit’s light.
Yea, when thou enterest the mind,
O Jubilus, thou rapture fair,
The heart of man new skill doth find
Love’s own disguise to grasp and wear,
The suffering of Love to bear,
With song and clamor of delight!
And thus the uninitiate
Will deam that thou art crazed indeed;
They see thy strange and fevered state,
But have not wit thy heart to read;
Within, deep-pierced, that heart may bleed,
Hidden from curious mortal sight.
Love, silent as the night,
Who not one word wilt say,
That none may know thee right!
O Love that lies concealed,
Through heat and storm and cold,
That none may guess nor read
Thy secrets manifold;
Lest thieves should soon grow bold
To steal away thy treasure,
Snatch it and take to flight
Deep-hid, thy secret fires
More ardently shall glow;
And he who screens thee close,
Thy fiercest heat shall know.