The Green

The seething closeness after recent rain,
The trees relieved,
Ancient priests of Eden’s keep,
Steaming green,
Cleaned leaves gleaming,
Dreaming deep green dreams
Deeper than reason,
Sweet and seamless,
Vision dim but still seeing,
Being,
Easing into release.
Real ease,
Breezes teasing the healing leaf
No need of redeeming
Having never been deceived,
Never believing the freezing speech of winter,
But reaching easy agreement
With seed and spirit:
The keys of freedom.

Not appeasing or pleading
Or ill at ease and needy as we ever seem to be,
Greedy, feeding like unheeded, unimpeded centipedes and millipedes
The heat of receding sweetness leading us on,
Bleeding, feeble, diseased and dreamless,
Sleeping uneasily,
Fearing peace itself

But all our dear unheeded seers,
They see, they hear,
Each peered reading of leaf and stream
Leading to keening cries.
Kneeling here they grieve
For each reedy spear that disappears,
Receding out of reach.
They seek to teach
To intercede
To plead the clear weaving
Of flesh and seed,
But we jeer at their meaning.
We deem them unneeded
Merely peeling bells
Appealing to inflamed feeling
Interfering
While we,
We heave them beneath our feet
We feasting beasts,
We teeming blasphemers,
We least of these

Emergent Unity

Let's start with an atom. An atom has particular properties and characteristics. If we combine 2 atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen we get a molecule of water. The molecule has different properties from the atoms that make it up. In large numbers, water molecules have a whole host of properties that make thinking of 'water' a valuable, real concept.

Next the cell. A number of complex interacting molecules is what a cell is. But a cell is 'alive', an emergent property that is not shared by its molecules. Put cells together and you organs and systems. Put those together and you have an organism like us. We have sentience and subjective experience, properties miles away from our constituent molecules.

Why should the enfolding of complexity end there? If we consider the super structure of the whole cosmos perhaps it has undreamt of capabilities and properties. Mystics throughout the ages have experienced ecstatic states where they experience the unity of all things. This is the realm of the sacred, the divine. This is might be what we call God.

Blessed

Blessed are those who stay afloat in a sea of doubt,
Not because they cling with desperation to the flotsam and jetsam of shipwrecked faith,
But because they let go.

Blessed are they who face themselves with a fierce honesty,
Who, with integrity, transform themselves,
Their life an art.

Blessed are they who inspire,
Whose lives burn with a glow that,
Though it may consume them,
Warms others who are near,
Comforted by that costly light.

Blessed are they who are honest in the face of deception,
Humble in the face of pride,
And tender in the face of violence.

Blessed are they who can speak from the heart,
Whose words, free from device, bear the fragrance of wet earth and grass.

Blessed are they who laugh,
Whose wit and playfulness can puncture the pompous and deflate the demi-god,
Not even sparing themselves from their trickster ways.

Blessed are they who sing,
Whose voices cannot be contained by simple speech or prose,
But who must rage and rejoice with Angel tongue.

Blessed are they,
For theirs is the kingdom of the earth (which is heaven).
They will partake of blood and sap and spit and sweat.
They will truly live.

Lunatic

There's a lunatic thumping around in my attic
Pounding the walls and upending the chairs
Although he's not evil but only deluded
I certainly hope that he won't come downstairs

I've tried to placate him with chocolate and whiskey
But it just doesn't seem he's so easily bought
He frantically leaps from one thing to another
This is harder by far than I would have thought

And so I must tame this crazy old lodger
Perhaps with hypnosis or possibly gin
He frightens the neighbours and occasionally smells
Now is the time I have to begin

And so I sat quietly and tried hard to calm him
I offered him drafts of sweet chamomile tea
And as we were talking it dawned on me slowly
This crazy old bugger was apparently me

Let's do lunch

A lion and a tiger went to lunch
Their meeting was well planned
They organised a limousine
And booked a marching band
They called upon a PR firm
Well versed in large events
Because the lion and tiger live
On different continents

Zeus

Zeus would sit on thunderclouds
And hurl the lightning down
Sipping cups of Jasmine tea
In his dressing gown

He had a brave and noble beard
That nestled on his face
When it wasn't playing poker
And off some other place

Jesus Again

Jesus never owned a gun
He never watched TV
He never played a baseball game
Or ate excessively
And though his land was occupied
He never urged revolt
And as I was thinking this
I realised with a jolt
If Americans who loudly claim
They love this Jesus guy
Were actually to meet Him
They'd punch Him in the eye!