One thousand feet above town,
too far away to hear the music and dancing of Saturday night,
there is almost complete silence,
save for the swaying of tall trees in the gentle breeze.
An unnamed sadness is present amidst the entertainment downtown,
while an unnamable joy is present here
in the silent night,
here where the moon’s light
shines through cobwebs and into cabins.
It is a good night to be alive
and to be awake.
I close my eyes and feel
both the unnamed sadness
and the silent, unnamable joy.
I feel the restless yearning of the drinkers and dancers downtown
as I watch the calm way the tall trees with immovable trunks sway.
Why be one or the other, either calm or restless?
I am restless and I am calm,
I sway like the trees and I dance like the wild,
I move with a vital force and I am immovable.
The calm, still being within respects the restless, seeking one,
and the restless one who seeks
respects the still one who accepts.
Neither demands to be sole inhabitant,
neither claims to encapsulate the soul.
Each needs the other in order
to be included in the whole.
The restless one yearns for the whole to be expressed
in one passionate movement,
one intuitive line,
while the still one looks on with an invisible glow,
blessed with knowledge beyond expression
and wisdom beyond time.
Above town and in town,
there is yearning and there is the yearned for,
there is stillness and there is restlessness,
there is underlying sadness and there is overarching joy.
I go out and look up at the sky.
Neither darkness nor light covers the whole stretch of sky.
There is the blackness of night and there is the light
from the moon and stars.
Each needs the other in order
to be included in the whole.
Poetry
“The Gift”
The snow drops from the sky,
And the earth receives the gift.
I wonder:
Is the gift given by one and received by another?
Who is the giver?
Who is the receiver?
Who is the one that lets go of the gift?
Who is the one that holds onto the gift?
Is the gift separate from the one who holds it?
Or:
Is the gift separate from the one who is held by it?
Unlike rain, snow makes little noise as it drops.
The gift is silent, wrapping up in silence whoever uncovers it.
Yet:
Was the gift ever covered?
The birds chirp the silence into song,
The stream carries the silence into movement,
And the trees are held motionless by the silence,
As from the sky continues to fall
The gift
Which transforms everything that receives it.
Nothing is the same when the gift is being given,
Yet nothing changes after the gift has been received.
When is the gift not being given?
When has the gift not been received?
The snow drops from the sky
And the earth receives the gift.
“Rainy Desert Night”
On this rainy desert night,
all Life
leans toward spring.
On the roof to-night
falls Life.
Listen to it sing.
“You Are as I Am”
For a long time, I enclosed myself, focused on how I was distinct, unique,
How ‘I’ was ‘I.’
I often wondered:
What is there outside and within myself that links me to this realm?
I felt connected only when I observed others connecting;
In some way, their connection included me.
Beyond that,
I could not ignore that I had something in me,
Something I wanted and needed to express.
All I knew was that I didn’t want to be made into someone I wasn’t.
Better to stay with who I was,
Though who exactly that ‘I’ was I couldn’t say.
Who was that ‘I’?
Maybe that ‘I’ was a wanderer, a vagabond,
In the world but feeling apart from it,
Somehow outside it,
Somewhere amidst the gathering dusk on the road heading out of town.
To others looking like the embodiment of freedom;
In reality, free
Only in aching dreams.
Maybe that ‘I’ was a poet, a wordsmith,
Using the pen like a mystic hammer,
Nailing words deep into unseen foundations,
Undertaking the groundwork of the soul.
Maybe that ‘I’ was a hermit, a Desert Solitaire,
Going out into the wilderness alone to listen to the silent intimations
Of an ancient and sacred world,
Searching in the aloneness for a Fountainhead of companionship,
Seeking in the splendid isolation a connection that could not be lost.
Maybe that ‘I’ was a poor tramp, a prodigal son,
Crying out to the empty night like a prophet of despair,
In sacred confusion, in divine discontent,
Searching for dissolution begot by dissipation,
Craving a fleeting solution to an insoluble situation.
And the thirst: forever intensifying;
The thirst: impossible to quench.
Maybe that ‘I’,
Who had no idea
Who it was,
Was not a single ‘I’ at all.
Maybe it was a multitude of I’s,
Each one striving to be the Number One ‘I,’
The original ‘I’,
The distinct ‘I’,
The ‘I’ independent of all other I’s,
The one and only ‘I.’
Aye Yai Yai!
Do you understand where I’m coming from?
Do I even understand where ‘I’ am coming from,
And who the ‘I’ is that is coming?
Is the ‘I’ coming? Is it becoming? Is it going?
Going where? Coming from where?
Or has the true ‘I’ been here all along,
Neither coming nor going,
Masked by all these ‘I’s wanting to be it?
These ‘I’s defined by what they seek to be.
What do these ‘I’s seek to be?
What do your ‘I’s seek to be?
What do your eyes see when they really look?
What do your ears hear when they really listen?
Really, listen:
Do you hear Life
Sing itself
To wakefulness?
Really, look:
Do you see the immaterial city
Renew itself
Without ceasing,
Arise
Without sleeping?
Watch it
Begin
Each moment anew.
Do you see?
It does not seek to be.
It is.
It is,
As are you.
It is as you are:
Do you
See?
You are as I am:
Can we
Be?
We are as It is:
Let us
Begin.
“A Divine Loss”
You no longer suffer from what is lost,
You know that what you lose is not your loss.
What you lose is not a cause to suffer,
What you lose is the cause of your suffering.
Losing the cause of your suffering:
This is a divine loss.
You are no longer at a loss for words,
As you were when you longed for
The never lost and the only now heard.
You no longer fear losing yourself.
How could you lose yourself?
Who you are is not a gift you can lose.
It is not a gift you are given one year for your birthday,
A gift you put in storage for a later time;
It is not a gift you misplace
And spend the rest of your lifetime searching for.
The time of your life is not Life’s time.
All the time you do not have is the time of Life.
All the time you do not have I do not have either.
All the time, weren’t you searching for
What is not mine and what is not yours?
You no longer suffer from what is lost,
You know that what you lose is not your loss.
You have lost nothing but the feeling that you are lost,
And the belief that you have something you can lose.
Now you take from all and no one feels taken from,
You give to all and no one feels in your debt.
What you have you don’t worry about losing,
What you lose you don’t worry about regaining.
What do you have?
What have you lost?
What do you lack now?
You thought in losing you would suffer more,
But what you’ve lost is not a cause to suffer.
What you’ve lost is the cause of your suffering.
Losing the cause of your suffering:
This is a divine loss.
“The Rest”
A night of rest from scholarly struggle,
from work of an external degree,
for an infernal degree.
And how do I rest?
I rest my back against the chair,
and I begin once more the struggle with myself.
I don’t understand the external struggle,
I don’t know how much good it does,
I don’t think much of it.
I forget to think too much tonight,
I forget all but the rest,
I forget all the rest and remember.
There can be no rest, I think,
as I rest my mind from the part I play
and bring my wakeful attention to the rest.
There is no best way, I think,
only to rest from all idea of first and best
and bring wakeful remembrance to the rest.
What is the rest?
Can the rest be reached by resting?
Can the rest be reached by working?
Can the rest be reached by unrest?
Can the rest be reached at all?
Should I rest in it, or should I wrest from it?
I reach for the rest and grasp nothing.
One student reaches her hand up high,
but the teacher does not call on her.
The student reaches too eagerly,
so readily that it is clear she is not ready.
No.
If she were ready she would not reach.
If she were ready she would not need to be called on.
What would she need if she were ready?
Something in me won’t rest until it finds rest.
It will never find rest.
Something in me loves to struggle,
and believes it struggles towards the rest.
Something in me rests and looks and
does not look to find.
Something in me is called in,
and does not ask why.
The rest is not history,
The rest is not to come,
Here I rest and here I am.
Am I here in the rest?
Here I rest, and the rest is also here.
Here I rest in who I am.
One student does not reach her hand up.
She tells herself that she does not know the answer.
What she tells herself is not wrong,
but it is not wrong that she does not know the answer.
Should she wait until she knows the answer?
Should she wait until she is ready?
What does she need to be ready?
“Getting There from Here”
You can get there from here,
it is not so far away.
Though you might travel for many years,
lost and confused on lonely desert byways,
a fierce light in your eyes that shields you slightly from the depths of your own despair,
your tender heart struggling madly against going cold,
your face sheltered from the sweltering sun,
now cursing the day-world and your broken and beaten self,
now brought to tears by the full moon that guides you somewhere else.
What is it you are searching for, my nomadic companion?
You can get there from here,
it is not so far away.
Though you might take to the seas,
captain ships to far-off lands searching for some forgotten Eldorado,
in desperate pursuit of the intense and exotic,
lustful for anything that smacks of adventure,
blind to all you see that lacks novelty,
your voyages always getting longer, riskier, farther-flung.
What is it you are searching for, my seafaring companion?
You can get there from here,
it is not so far away.
Though you might work non-stop for many years,
spend a lifetime pulling your way to the top,
pulled by the allure of skyscrapers and penthouses,
taken up and away by elevators and escalators,
taken hold of by the image of your self glimpsed high above
blind to what holds your unseen self far beneath.
What is it you are searching for, my ambitious companion?
You can get there from here,
it is not so far away.
Though you might spend your life in pursuit of love,
urged on by impulses more powerful than you will admit,
seeking in physical union the dissolution of your separateness,
and a joyful reunion with and return to wholeness,
looking to the future to give you back what you had in the past,
looking for a lover to provide the missing piece you feel you lack.
What is it you are searching for, my love-hungry companion?
You can get there from here,
it is not so far away.
Though you might spend your life running from love,
avoiding life and its uncalled-for difficulties that you do not understand,
looking to move away from rather than toward,
seeking peace by escaping conflict,
keeping to yourself in your secured mind where others cannot hurt you,
fortifying yourself with knowledge others do not understand,
and refusing to let a single anguished plea seep out from your fragile soul.
What is it you are searching for, my elusive companion?
You can get there from here,
it is not so far away.
Though you might spend your life seeking to understand,
your pen moving furiously along the page,
your thoughts moving frantically along in your mind,
your need to express yourself forever growing,
your curiosity always aflame, your yearnings always unfulfilled,
always overlooking what is close by and drawn to what is afar,
what is over there, absent, ever elusive,
drawn to some invisible force just beyond the visible horizon that pulls you in and holds you still,
a force you might grasp for a second and try to hold onto,
a force that lets you go if you won’t let go.
What is it you are searching for, my scribbling companion?
You might find it,
and you might not,
but know that it is not so far away.
You can get there by being here.
“A Still-Moving Stream”
I sit under a tree near the Prescott airport,
next to the intersection where willow creek road ends and begins,
on a warm January afternoon.
I listen to the cars as they slow down to a stop at the light,
to the pause while the light is red and the cars are at rest,
and to the cars as they start up again once the light turns green.
With the tree at my back and the sun on my face,
I just sit there and listen and hardly move.
The cars at ground level slow down, stop, and start up again,
while a plane above flies on until it arrives at its destination.
Some of the passengers on the plane drift off into sleep
as the pilot prepares to lift off into flight,
sleep while the plane is in the air,
and wake up again once the plane touches ground.
The passengers in the plane drift off, sleep, and wake up again.
I just sit there and listen and hardly move,
feeling the tree at my back and the sun on my face.
The clouds are wisps, languid and fluid,
floating along like driftwood in a still-moving stream,
moving on at whatever pace the stream moves on.
Today the stream is still-moving.
The cars as they slow down
sound like the water in a stream
after it has passed through some rapids.
After passing through the rapids,
the water slows down and becomes a still-moving stream.
Feeling the tree at my back and the sun on my face,
watching the cars move from east to west,
and the planes move from west to east
I can do nothing,
I can think of nothing I would rather do
than sit here and listen and hardly move.
“Coming to Believe”
A father I know is temporarily separated from his daughter, physically.
He wants to be with her but is unable to
until he is able to be with himself,
until he is able to see himself as he is
and come to terms with all he sees.
He is a loyal and loving father to his daughter,
wanting to provide for her, in his words,
provide a home for her, a place of belonging.
He longs to hear her first questions,
to be overcome by the innocence and purity in her voice,
her heart overwhelmingly open to life and all its possibilities,
wholly receptive in a way that can open his heart,
that can allow him to see that same innocence and purity in himself,
that same divine openness,
those same qualities I feel in him
when he speaks of her.
We all see in others what we cannot see in ourselves.
What he loves in her is what he would love in himself,
if he could see it.
The love I perceive in him is the same love that is harder to perceive in myself.
We are not so alone as I have often thought.
In our heads we feel alone
but in our hearts we do not believe it.
And deeper still, deeper even than the heart,
what is it that we believe?
Do we believe that there is no need to know exactly what we believe in?
Do we believe that we can be okay
with not knowing, with not having, with not doing?
Do we, or do we not, believe?
This father who is a friend of mine,
in these months of being separated from his daughter,
is learning how to be a man
before he can be a father again,
is becoming better able to live life
without needing life to go differently,
is coming to believe.
“Being The Dance”
When the music moves me,
I can’t help but move myself.
Sometimes the body has to move
to make way for the soul.
The music lifts it out,
my dance a wordless shout
that it is
here, there,
in, out,
above, below.
The dance:
so fervent, so wild,
and yet so much like
stillness sinking in and
drifting out.
So much like the stillness in me
meeting the strength in you.
Still strength,
the power in not doing,
is still strength.
The dance not a doing but a being,
a being dancing,
stilled in movement,
being the dance.
Brian Leibold 