Classic Poem

(Illusion singing to Reality)

Back in Australia, the most East of the West,
John Kerry continued the exile he had begun so and so
many millions of lives ago through his own act of waking up
and wanting to know exactly who he was
a musical question which turned out to be
a fugal proposition of infinite possible development.

Sunbeat and rainbeat, veil upon veil- day-veil of brightness, night-veil
of dark; face-veils and form-veils gossamer spun, crowded close and
thickly; sail-veils and flag-veil hoisted
over veil of sea - veil-voyage and returning; rain-veil of weeping and a
place he hoped where none knew of ships and journeying and the
far-shadowing spear of His glance - Baba thou Beloved.

Nursing his wound never healing, but widening
because the spearhead remained in it - widening and love-festering,
sloughing off veil-flesh; widening cleanly and the spearhead of bliss
entering more deeply into the flesh-veils ever more hungrily and
healingly, as the sun into the earth when the farmer sets his plough
more deeply into the sour subsoil where no sun has been before:

Each day of day-drag or day-flight curtained
within the three curtains of sleep-veil and dream-veil and
awake-veilsleep the forgetter and dream the distortioner and wakefulness
the cruel concretizer who sets the dreams in solid forms, the painter
whose brushstrokes are the bones, and whose colour
is the teeming flesh squeezed out of tubes of nerves:

Nursing the wound nursing the wound, gazing with admiration
on the face of the lovely Spearman, he was saying to himself:
Small wonder and great wonder things are as they are
and this business of Everything and Nothing. This business
of being nothing and somebody, nobody feeling he is something.Something,
something in your hand, Baba, or else nothing before your
feet.

Patience, patience fool, he was telling himself. Yap-yap
of nothing about something which turns out to be nothing
yap-nowt of piddle-pool-puddling, instead of sitting quiet
by the crystal stream gold-flecked of His love. Two advantage when you
sit still: you don't feel the kick in the bones so much - and you give
him a chance to do something - Baba thou beloved - you Baba


Stop wanting, when you are lying down, to raise yourself onto your
knees, and stop wanting to lie down and cover your head with a blanket
when you are standing up; stop wanting a job, a job with dry land
and with lovely rivers. Leave it to Him - He knows the time of seed-time
and growth-time and fruit-time both in space-time and continent-time
- Baba, thou sun of the gold of the spear and its widening and healing.

Turn in yourself, John - bring back your eyes fond man
from restless visioning. What is it to you that an eye is furtive,
a lip derisive? that speech is ruined and no eyes' lightning
indites the pages of books in lovely verse? Become in your seeing,
blind; in your hearing, deaf - or ever the lovely tide of spring will
find you lip-clinging to a clod of earth and your eyes stretched in an
empty sky.

Only a deep Cloud of a Man can rain rains over parched earth. My gods
are diminishing... Since you are a jealous God, one lovely in vanity
of Alone-selfness, let the Mill-of-you grind this to flour for the
hungry-of-you - or let their hunger grow into a crop of hunger so that
they
will the more seek you, and cast this as dust to the wind.

Or, when the grinding is done either to flour or dust, give me a word a
lovely singing word in my mouth, some honey-word, some wine-word to
utter in singing - not for many but for thou in my ear
to delight in; so that my ear may aid mine eyes to fix themselves only
on your dear Form: a singingness of a word
the lovely word of your N arne, thou beloved One, you.

Become unstuck, God, in your entrancement in this which is called me so
that your own love for yourself may be released in a clear stream. Why
do you allow yourself to fall into error, attaching yourself
to everything you see through these eyes? You are the ever-free blissful
One - I am the veil between yourself and you. Tear this veil which is
between us - but if you cannot, ask BABA to do it for you.

Ho, the nothingness of the Nothing which is the things of thingness
contained in the Everything! Nothing am I, and Everything art Thou my
beloved, lovely, and loveliness itself. Ho, what a Box of tricks
you are, Krishna-Baba! Ho, but you are the compassionate One himself,
Buddha-Baba; the most-Shepherd of the flocks of the world, Jesus-Baba;
the long shadowing spear and singing bow One, Rama-Achilles-Baba.


But I would like to be the most-least of a nothing of your servant and
dither about cleaning shoes and carrying water in the ambrosial dawn
hours - by God I would, Baba! It gets a bit irksome
waiting for your word, for you to SAY something,
and this blasted mirk of a black pitch of a night which is not
a dark night but just, as said, a black bitch of a night.

Ho, the nothingness of the Nothing which is the things of thingness
in everything! Nothing am I, but Everything art thou my beloved, lovely
and loveliness itself - you, Lord and dear Child of yourself,
Zeus-Bambino-Baba. But a little love, a little love
injected into us could not altogether be frowned upon as miracle-making,
although it would be a miracle if the injection 'took'.

But it is no good talking to you, Baba - you are just too-much love.
Whatever we say, you just smile with your smile of divine kindness as
much as to say, 'Ho, these children of mine, Myself,
why did I ever wake up and start singing? ' This singing of your smile
stretching out and supporting the nothingness of us-of-the-Nothing.
Oh, and the Dawn-song of His mouth.-I only hope I am still around then.

It's no good talking to One who is the SAYING of the say which one says,
because he doesn't listen because he knows exactly what he is going to
say.
Tired and tired am I of myself. For the wide expanse of the sky
of your bosom I cry. Awake in my heart that I may love you with service
or else be dust before your feet: anything but this not-even-nothing,
nor a place in your Everything; something, 0 my Child and my Father.

The stars weep, and you have compassion on them in their dew to the
grass
and the wheatfields; the sun sinks in his shame, and you cover him
with hiding night; but my tears laugh at me and my shame is naked
before me.
The prayers of the ant and the flame-loving moth are you answering,
and the heavy earth-turning are you guiding with infinite care.

A song in your praise, or a mute adoration, is not much of an asking.
And there will corne the time of your lovely Speaking and your Leaving,
and my going and returning and waiting and emptiness and unlovely
earth under my feet, and wide, wide sky Somewhere you will be.-
And the mother will be answering her child and the loved one her lover
with moon and star glint of love-eyes, BabaBaba - God - Sun of earth and
Rains of all growing.

Not only can I not sing of you, my beloved, but I have no place
in your work. A lame cur around the streets and backdoors of houses am I
who was once a cattle dog whose teeth were respected. Dog
I would be, but at your heels, Baba, to trot in your dust,
and at camp-fire at night lie a little way off watching your every move,
and when you lay down, myself to follow you again in dream.

But I remember your 'Am I not enough' to Abu Sa'id, both at the time
when the people praised him, and when they voided their filth on him.
I remember your utter kindnesses and the hem of your dress in my hand
and your saying, 'I am always with you,' and your own always-rejection.
The well set mill grinds the wheat small- and you
are the King and the King's Son on earth who pays for us all.

But no - it is not any that reject me: myself rejects me that I may
become acceptable to Him. And just as dog I had to be on my way up to
man, so dog I must become on my way back to myself - Baba, Thou sower
and reaper and grinder! Thou sifter and again-ear-grower
in each speck of flour! Surely you are in your loving-kindness
tying up my tongue with the same cords you are cutting away from my
heart.

You are the great Undoer, so that what shall be done shall be done. The
Remover who brings forward, the Stupifier who makes intelligent. The
Wind that levels the young wheat that the stalks may grow strong in the
sun; while you during the days of its growing
attend other else, and whet with your eyes the scythe of its reapingThou
lovely one! Thou faithless one of all faith!

Thou stonecutter and gemcutter I Thou potter and breaker of pots I Thou
upturner and returner I Thou upheavaller and leveller J Thou bender of
what is straight, and Thou straightener of the bent! Thou Baba! Thou
lovely-Woman and glory-Man and Child! Thou
moon-night,
Thou star-night, Thou dawn swept of stars, Thou morning of sun! Thou
alone-doer, Thou adorable and adored - Thou us, Thou
only-alone-Self!


Thus was John Kerry complaining and praising - for complaint is praise
inasmuch as complaint is attachment, and praise is complaint
because praise is separation. And he was recognizing that this
was the beginning of those subtractions, the sum-total of which would be
the subtraction of him from himself. 'When the five sheaths are
subtracted Atman alone remains. Sivoham,Sivoham-I am
EXISTENCEKNOWLEDGEBLISS.

Cease, cease
'Swallow Thy Breath Every Moment.'