voice

Selected Poems from Rafael Stoneman

Gill Washington Poems, Rafael Stoneman, Spirituality , , , , 0 Comment

If not for the poet

If not for the poet, who would be the voice of love?
If not for the artist, who would be the brush of sight?
If not for the mother, who would walk the earth?
If not for the Beloved, who would truly live?

 

Like ripened figs

Like ripened figs plucked for the mouths of babes,
or honey suckled by the working servant bee,
our innermost heart layer subsides when Self
shines as Sun in the sky of our mind’s eye.

 

With one tiny twist

With one tiny twist of an unknowable knob,
the inner color shifts from red to pink,
and a flower about to wilt, perks up in full vigor.
Enthusiasm, I call you friend!
Heart, I call you home!

 

I meet you in the void

I meet you in the void beyond time.
I shall remain here with you forever.
I have no life left to live, my Beloved.
Yet it feels so good to feel You living in me.
Do you feel that goodness Yourself,
since there is in truth no me?
I cannot touch this in words.
For I have no mind left to grasp.
I explode in the heart. I am Your I.

 

There is a whisper

There is a whisper, but it’s louder than the wind.
It calls to us, “Come Home. The story is over, the pages are worn thin. Come
home.” It’s like a chant,
a sacred OM underlying all else. It requires no doing anything, or going
anywhere or becoming anything.
If only we see that we are this whispering sound,
all else will dissolve into peace.

 

singing tears

The dam has been bursting all along,
singing tears of the mountain’s song.

The puppet breaks free from its strings,
the caterpillar soars with new wings.

Dreamers shall awaken beyond time,
in love with a human heart so divine.

The actor surrenders the final mask,
in Your light all life comes to bask.

A fruit suddenly drops from its tree,
such sweetness like honey is to be.

All poetry by Rafael Stoneman

Index of poets on Allspirit

 

I am, O Anxious One.

Gill Washington Poems, Rainer Maria Rilke, Spirituality , , , 0 Comment

By Rainer Maria Rilke

I am, O Anxious One. Don’t you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can’t you see?
don’t you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star’s vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.

From The Book of Hours, translated by J.B. Leishman

Read more poems from Rainer Maria Rilke

Index of poets on Allspirit

I wonder if I know him

Gill Washington Death, Joy, Life, Poems, Rabindranath Tagore, Sorrow, Spirituality , , , 0 Comment

By Rabindranath Tagore

I wonder if I know him
In whose speech is my voice,
In whose movement is my being,
Whose skill is in my lines,
Whose melody is in my songs
In joy and sorrow.
I thought he was chained within me,
Contained by tears and laughter,
Work and play.
I thought he was my very self
Coming to an end with my death.
Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him
In the sight and touch of my beloved?
This ‘I’ beyond self I found
On the shores of the shining sea.
Therefore I know
This ‘I’ is not imprisoned within my bounds.
Losing myself, I find him
Beyond the borders of time and space.
Through the Ages
I come to know his Shining Self
In the life of the seeker,
In the voice of the poet.
From the dark clouds pour the rains.
I sit and think:
Bearing so many forms, so many names,
I come down, crossing the threshold
Of countless births and deaths.
The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,
Embracing past and present,
Dwells in Man.
Within Him I shall find myself –
The ‘I’ that reaches everywhere.

Read more poems from Rabindranath Tagore

Index of poets on Allspirit