Why is it so difficult for us to try and understand each other? For once, at least, it seems that all of us have picked a side to be on, but on either side of the fence do we each feel that ours is the morality, that we each only see the clearer truth. Why cannot we — just for kicks — stop and listen to what the other side is trying to say? For we are all imperfect conveyers of the information our hearts attempt to relay, and it seems to me that a lot of all of us our actions are based on what our hearts are telling us is right. It seems, however, that we are afraid of this one thing: that we may see what they are talking about. And that perhaps, we will become the thing we hate. In our spirits, though, we may find we have more things in common than not. If we fear to understand, we are no more than upright beasts, brute intelligences made only for conflict. What do you think is behind the words the other side is saying? It is the same no matter which side you are on: a human being.

Try to desire well, for that is a virtue in and of itself.

The meanings of the symbols have been lost, and we speak a language whose words are defined by things no one understands. Good and evil once had specific intonations, specific justifications and juxtapositions, specific depths. They are now for us cartoon characters, grossly caricaturized words, comic book philosophies that have no bearing to genuine flesh and blood. And what is this thing, faith? Many equate it with foolishness, now, not the sacred sensation it once represented. Then there is love… it is three lines of poetry written by someone else, to be sent in envelopes on holidays. It is perhaps high time to look in the last place any of us do: to look inside ourselves, for it is the only place where we can answer this: what meaning is left?

Ashes, Dust

We are the epitome
of what may be
created from ashes.
Remember that all things
have their end;
the engine continues on
because other things
begin. Do not despair
if all that is left you
is the dust of the
former generation.
For we recall
that it was from dust
that we were made,
the moisture
of the breath of God
which turned it
into the clay
of our flesh. And even in
rot are creeping things
thereby fed.
The world is strange
with what survives,
and what is
resigned to oblivion.
Do not give up
so easily, for it may be
that treasures
are sometimes discarded
among the ashes,
even words
no one thought
could spell the name
of the divine,
from the voice of the gutter.

These are just rearrangements of words, all of them you have read before; verily, there is nothing new under the sun. But Romeo spoke to Juliet in such words, and we beheld magic, for some reason; politicians spoke in such words and we sensed the disingenuous. We have been hammered by terms and terminology all through our lives, and yet there are still phrases that move us, that shake us, that surprise us — even though they are all only words, and we have heard them all before. It is why the writer still bothers to write, even knowing all stories have already been told, why we will do the work to finish our craft. There are still tales to weave whose patterns rhyme with the infinite, who draw light from the inexhaustible fires of creation. So I say, quick, before the candle goes out: tell me what the everyman does next.

Make some noise: death can only speak when life is silent.

White wind, tell me why we are as we are.

For I have traveled these two thousand roads and found only division, one from another, squandering these precious hours on argument alone.

Did I dream that you ever were, the voice of the deepness of the world, the genius that all who save anyone call upon, you that flies to the ends of the earth at the merest hint of grace faltering, at truth falling one footfall too short of these, we children of the light?

For I have traveled within myself most of all, and wondered at the places you brushed against my soul, indelible invisible your signature upon me.

White wind, tell me I may dream once more.

A man may be haunted with doubts, and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood… Doubt must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.

We all, at times, want a vacation away from ourselves,
somehow to crawl out of our skin and to emerge a butterfly.
But truth is that this life is not a prison, but our freedom.

Sometimes, we decide that it is not worth the bother. It speaks much of us just when we decide that that is the case in something we do, or take care of. I look at the world, and then I wonder at God, thinking about just this consideration. The infinitesimal detail of all that exists, for we are made of smaller parts, and those of smaller parts still, all in some sort of elaborate harmonics that make us and everything else be and do: there is no end to the intricacy of what has been created. For all that is, God decided that it was all of it worth the bother, the most trivial of trivialities; all of even the most useless (seemingly) things have no lack of complexity to them. This is what is meant by the creation speaking of its creator, more than all the words ever written, and all I might do is point a feeble finger at what I see of this profound and mighty universe.

I watch the marks that tell of the passage of time. I watch what was wounded heal, what was fresh turn sour, what was a dream emerge into being. I watch the towers of man fall, the arenas of man fill, the folly of man laid waste. I watch the stars move across the sky, the moon turn its phases, the clouds brush what is above clean. But nowhere do I imagine that the earth and sea tell me that they ever remember all the things that pass, for it is not theirs to keep anything from the withering of time. It is to us that is given the memory, to keep alive the things that die, to keep the colors bold of the things that fade, to stop time within the sphere of our reckoning. I watch the marks that tell of the passage of time, and lo, if not our eyes, there will always be eyes that watch. There will always be a dream that remembers.

Shine

The dawn argues away the clouds,
becomes emphatically bright and gold
in the far distance of wonder
from an ordinary life and its rays are close
like the wonder of an ordinary life (we
are blinded by the trees of habit
planted by Good Intent — we thought
they were flowers, once).

Life is not what it is:
what we feel is not what we feel,
what we see is not what we see,
what we say is not what we say,
what we want is not what we want.
Parallel to every scheme’s run
is the angel which pulls the string
that we believe no string
is being pulled.

And calmly, thoroughly, the
five fleeting moons of our dreams
wait
to see with which one, distraught voice
we will to birth another infant night.

In death, I think, every soul
who begs to be free
must discover twelve senses,
twelve different rhymes of doubt
to clear the soul of self-deception.
Else, the cages of fascination
repeal the faith of this, our generation,
and we sink into the light
until we are blind — Hell
is the action of ourselves left to ourselves
without an intervening World.
And Heaven
is the darkness God called Night
solid with stars.

Instructions to the Lost are woven
in the cry of the eagle,
in the symmetry of the snowflake,
in the thrash of the lightning,
and in the invisible caress of the breeze —
and the architecture of a sunset sky,
its grand brimming of golds and silvers,
emblazons into our essential selves
the solemn promise of another day.

Of fire, of light, of thunder: my God is a God of holy passion: I have known Him to the infinitesimal, all that my soul could bear, and forgotten all but His mystery. To comprehend an aught fraction of Him is to know all that has ever happened, all that is, all of destiny to be, and yet still not understand the essence of why He is as He is. “I AM,” He said, and no two words ever wrapped themselves around so much power, nor were ever so ineffable. And I, this poor traveler on a quest to discover his mere self: I beseech You for mercy I do not deserve, knowing You have given me everything and asked back only for the fumbling that is my love.

Somewhere in me is a purpose that is larger than me, that greater voices have evoked, that from a vial of hopes has been stirred into my liquid soul.

Somewhere in me is a strength I have never used, and God help me if I ever need to call upon it, a will from above, that which cannot be defeated.

Somewhere in me is a vision of an unseen world, and it is these things which are eternal, for all things that are seen shall have an end, and shall pass away.

Somewhere in me is a dream that is older than me, which I have become a part of, like entering a grand river coursing through time.

Somewhere in me is a place that is home, which I carry with me, for we are never at rest unless we are content in our own skins.

Somewhere in me is a quiet more solemn than the silence of a multitude, where nothing of this world may disturb me, where I listen for God.

Somewhere in me is love, and this is the most mysterious: I can never quite put my finger on what it is, but it is the surest thing that I ever had.

We never become truly spiritual by sitting down and wishing to become so. You must undertake something so great that you cannot accomplish it unaided.

Who shall it be remembered of this now generation?
What van Gogh is hidden from us, to be found at close of the age?
And what happens of the van Gogh who is never discovered?

Something is about to happen. I do not know where destiny’s source lies, or even from where this feeling comes, but within my marrow is an unsettled anticipation: for I know not what it is, but something approaches. Whatever the signs I have a tune to in my intuition, there is a certain air to this hour, a pregnant inbreath before a strong wind will blow, a herringbone sky before a hard rain. Expect the unexpected — as if you could, as if you would not still be surprised. Or perhaps I know nothing. As with anything, one might frame a perspective, for I would not take these as words of some prophet. I am just some fool who believes he perceives, and perhaps I reach beyond myself. If something does come, though, be not of demeanor that says you were not forewarned. Something draws to open, and I am someone to say I told you so.

You can take it with you. It’s easy. Give it all away.