Reply to Rilke ... About that Cloak

Isn’t it possible

That God’s true cloak

Is no cloak at all?

The golden mist covering

The field will dissipate

Not long after dawn

Nor need our hands

Hide the truth from our eyes

Once the mist is gone

Instead let them lie idle
Alongside or clasped 
In mudra or prayer
Not busy making
Or creating
Only abiding

***************

This poem is written in reply to Rilke's poem, God's True Cloak, from The Book of Hours.  You can read a beautiful translation of Rilke's poem here, by Joanna Macy and Anita Bowers.  What often happens to me when I read Rilke is that I'm filled with more with questions than answers.  He unsettles me, which I suppose is one measure of his greatness in the realm of the spirit. 

A Note to John and Paul

And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make  -- does that sound like a fundamental truth to you or not? Or is it just another sweet McCartney-Lennon concoction? And who says it can’t be both – life is full of many such false choices, out of which many great songs have been composed.  

But the truest love may know neither taking nor making – it’s always dispossessed, more universal and less personal, of origin unknown and never, ever manufactured. In that sense, the best love is also given with a blessing, rather than taken; and received in the same spirit as it was so disposed; it is reciprocal without need for being reciprocated, in that things may be in cosmic balance without least hint of obligation imposed.

Crossing the Sound in Mid November

With each passing day of autumn
The beauty and mystery only deepens
The dying fall into the major lift of winter
(and yes I was thinking of Leonard Cohen
as the ferry pulled away from the dock)
Color no longer listening much to reason
While the sap needs ever more convincing
Before it all resolves itself into the shadows
Of the washboard sky riddled with blue

Poem for the First Deep Frost

Last night's deep freeze Brought this morning's leaves To the brink of capitulation Now they all know it's time To let go of the dream Of endless summer
Enough the leaves say Without the wind's least suggestion As all the neighboring trees
Heave a collective sigh and Silently resume shedding

Time is now a mirror
In which winter looks
Ands sees the face of spring

Photo by Nikos Somarakis

Timor Mortis Non-Conturbat Me

For whenever it happens

That your forward vision

Collapses in the extreme 

Whether due to old age

Accident unforeseen

Or merely collateral damage

Resulting from a major disaster

And the vanishing point

Suddenly appears near at hand

It’s more than enough

To keep your wits about

Maintaining a stoical bearing

(just like Obdulia has done)

Not so much raging

Against this or that

But contemplative and

Sage-like into the last lap

Timor mortis non-conturbat me

At a certain point

The sum of the holes

Becomes equal or greater

Than the whole of the parts

I mean how much does it really

Bother you now that

You find yourself

Every day growing

A little more preoccupied

By what’s missing

And less attuned

To what’s here

Timor mortis non-conturbat me

 That’s what it feels like anyhow

Like anything might be possible

Even as the corridors have thinned out

Like there’s still no reason for a heart

To be the least bit hardened

Or for the soul to concede

Even an inch of sacred ground

That’s why more and more

As I’ve thought about it

I’ve come to believe

Timor mortis non-conturbat me

By the very grace of God
That’s how we all proceed