Author: Brian

“Mystery wraps me in her infinite embrace”

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I sit and I wait for the music to enter
I listen to the water; my eyes are closed, and the sun is on me
I search in the day for the unnamable center
And the night comes like the dawn, singing

The song never ends, but few are the ears that hear it
I came upon a blind beggar, and saw that he was rich
The path ahead is unclear, but why should I fear it?
I climbed out of the hole and found the world my niche

Mystery wraps me in her infinite embrace
While what I can’t see traps me, and I search for an escape
I’ve been discovered by Beauty
I’ve been loved by the sea
Those who talk to me of my duty
I see they are far from free

The pond glints and sparkles in the morning sun
In its daily dance with the clouds where neither wins out
I will write till the last, I will never be done
I will write with my longing, I will write with my doubt

Mystery wraps me in her infinite embrace
While what is in me traps me, as I search for some place
To be discovered by Beauty
To love the ever-restless sea
To find what is my unique duty
To sing and dance till I am free

Let the current take me home, wherever that may be
Let the Light rising over the mountains rise also from in me
Let the road remain open; let the words stay unspoken
Let the souls that seek to be whole admit that they are broken

I prayed without words; in my rhythmic waiting I prayed
I waited like a deep pond waits, reflecting the world above
Below me was the unseen, what in me I had not made
I looked to the pond and my gaze fell upon a rising dove

And I felt Mystery wrap me in her infinite embrace
As I remembered a strange young woman with an ancient face
Who had not discovered her own Beauty
But yet she found it in the sea
Who felt that to fall was her duty
But only by rising could she be set free

The stillness disintegrated, rose away like the mist
I saw the reflection but the Truth itself was evasive
She disappeared like a gypsy with a brief, fleeting kiss
My heart moaned to the moon, its sorrow pervasive

And I let mystery wrap me in her infinite embrace
And I felt floods of compassion for the human race
Whose cruel ugly acts conceal a deeper Beauty
Yet ugly or beautiful, it all returns to the sea
A race loving to talk of patriotism and duty
Talking so much of freedom, so never breaking free

Time plays its symphony on the timelessly still waters
And like an athlete I strengthen myself, determined not to be destroyed
But Time is ruthless, it has seen fall many martyrs
Fall like pebbles, like raindrops, made vague by fog, into the void

The vogue now is to ignore rather than face the implacable
But I must face it, I must taste for myself what kills and what gives life
With my pen and my restless feet, I will track the intractable
I will cut through to the eternal with this finite ink knife

And I will love Mystery as she wraps me in her infinite embrace
I will let her trap me, if only to see her face
I will walk with purpose towards Beauty
I will ebb and flow with the sea
To discern the true from the false will be my duty
To see through Time’s unending march, and so from it break free

On Departures

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Departures are a kind of death. One who has departed many times, and has seen many depart, is closer to accepting his own death than one who has never departed anywhere, who has never truly strayed from the place he mistakenly calls home. Death is the great departure, but it is only great if you have prepared yourself through prior, smaller, less great departures. The traveler knows death a little more intimately, while never knowing it fully, each time he leaves a place. He is closer to death with each breath, in an active sense, and thereby more connected with life. His departure is not only a cutting of ties; it is also a joining of the ties between life and death, between sorrow and joy, between departure and arrival. He departs one place knowing he will arrive in another. There is freedom in departing. When no place or person holds you, all places and people are open to you. When I leave a place, my heart opens finally to loving the place I had been. When I leave a person, my love for that person grows as the distance between us grows. The traveler, the one who departs, knows without a doubt that closeness and distance are not separate.

Aloofness and Intimacy

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The reason why I stay alone, why I have never had a long term relationship with a woman, has less to do with my aloofness than it does with my intense craving for true, genuine closeness. The more aloof a person appears, often the more intense is that person’s yearning for intimacy. It is those who appear to be easily or loosely intimate who are in reality the most aloof.

The most aloof individual, therefore, is the one who appears not at all aloof, who actually seems welcoming and perfectly at ease, who is invariably charming and superficially attractive. Those who seem aloof, who look uncomfortable and ill at ease, are almost always those whose emotions are overwhelmingly strong and, when they finally do connect with another, have almost unbearably strong connections, unbearable because, even as strong as they are, they are not always strong enough to stay unbroken and whole.

 

“May Morning”

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The still pond in its rested state sings
With sun-sparkling glints heralding spring.
Birds land and take off again,
Content whether on the ground or in the air,
As elsewhere women and men hustle through swarming streets
In pursuit of antiquated notions of happiness,
While ancient Buddhas disguised as homeless drunks
Sit against grafittied walls with knowing half-smiles,
Welcoming the warmth of the season.

I welcome the sound of a bird behind me in the Utahan morning
With its owl-like hoots, and I think of the owl,
Seeing in the dark; and myself,
Writing in the pre-dawn darkness.
What owlish spirit soars out of me
When the world is dark with half-remembered dreams?

“Still Seeking”

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I sought ecstasy, and ecstasy
Threw me from a tall building
And commanded me to fly.

I sought Grace and Greed
Tortured me with my lack.

I sought more of whatever
Would take me from myself,
And more was granted,
And I was more trapped in ‘I’
Than ever before.

I sought Beauty, and hidden
Loveliness revealed herself
With shy, gentle vulnerability,
And I called her ugly, unfit
To be seen, unworthy.

And it was I who was blind
And not worthy to see,
Not able to perceive,
To discern between,
To see in one, the other;
And in the other, the one.

I sought oneness, and knew
For certain I would always be separate.

I looked deeply at my separation
And the realization of oneness restored me
To my true and undivided self.

“At Year’s End”

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The wind blows in
As I sit in sin and count
My failings thrice.

I would surely give in
If I could only begin
To resolve or to suffice.

I live in this den
With a yen to surcease
This damned and pretend game of dice.

And so the year ends,
Let’s be merry, my friends,
And hope we don’t go through this twice.

 

“Christmas Eve in the Early Morn”

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Christmas Eve in the early morn:
An open window and a strong wind.

She was strong and opened herself
To me in the brisk morning
As I braced myself for her parting
Gift of unutterable loneliness.

It was her gift I needed
To be alone and to weep
That she was not with me.

Why should I not keep
This window open, and listen
To the falling rain, and let
This pain fall to meet me
In the desert of my longing?

Do you need to speak
Like the wind, like the rain?
I will listen.
Do you need to weep
For lost nights and lost days?
I will weep with you.

I want nothing more
Than to weep with you,
And on that long awaited night
When there is nothing more that I want,
I still will live
To weep with you.

“If You Were Here”

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I would like most of all for you to be here
Maybe then I could face the day
I yearn for you above all to be near
When you are not I do not know what to say

I am withering here where you were
For lack of your body and your smile
I know I will never sink or stir
If your wondrous heart leaves me this beguiled

If only I knew of your angelic grace
I might have let you in
But now I cannot look myself in the face
I cannot weep and I cannot grin

You are an angel, you are yourself
So why have I fallen this deep in the mire?
What looks like pain feels like health
My condition has never been this dire

It all has been lost and now I seek
To retrieve what of myself I still can
To inherit the world one must remain meek
I’ve been given much more than I can stand

And so I sit, here in this chair
And wonder how we all survive
In this demise where we are laid bare
Cut in pieces with venomous knives

“William Blake, A Lonesome Angel, and Me

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I hear my neighbor start to sigh,
I see her as she starts to cry,
I cannot bear to hear her cry,
Yet here she weeps, so near to me.

Come, my neighbor, do not sigh,
And come, my neighbor, must we lie?
Come now, my love, do not ask why,
Why, will you not die not to lie with me?

Oh, my neighbor, you must fly!
O, my love, I lie! I lie!
But my dear angel, I alone will die
If you flee from here, away from me.