Unbottled Note

There wasn't any wind left
in the old sails.

We drifted aimlessly
through the abyss
on lazy green tides,
rode the backs
of invisible serpents
until the stars changed
and we couldn't even guess
where we were anymore.

After months
with the sails down,
a day finally came
when the sun rose
bearing a brash breeze
from the boiling orange east.

We were
on the ropes hoisting,
slicing through waves again
chasing the west,
abandoning ourselves
to the faith
there was land
out there somewhere.

Somehow it made sense
to keep following the sun.

Overheard at the End of the World

On this day
a shaggy dog tale
beyond all hope or fear,
weary of the wet weight
of a long cold desperate swim,
touches shoreline,
climbs to dry ground,
shakes the clinging remnants free
in a twisting torus exploding
sprayed diamonds flashing
starlight splashing surprised skin
evaporating on the wind
dissipated laughing wingless and airborne
until only the sound of flying remains,
stays with you all the way out to the waterfall
where the sharp wave of silence roars down
on the first moment of diving
in and through to where
only the light is still audible.

More Moments Like This, Please

Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment.
– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

It has all gone transparent,
and absolutely nothing has changed.

Sights still stream
through this body’s eyes,
just as they have for all the past
just shy of sixty years;
but I never used to notice most
of what is given by vision,
just the occasional fallen brown petal
from a once-golden cactus bloom
fleeting by twirling
on the surface.

Now the blazing river
is wholly recognized
roaring the reflection
of something like sunrise,
some ever-brighter empty
infinitely amicable density
of light.

An invulnerable fulfillment is glimpsed;
for a moment
all disappointments disappear.

Prospector’s Diamond Lightning Path

“What is a hundred or a thousand years to Them, or tens of thousands? When They come, time’s purpose is fulfilled. What never was passes to nothingness when They have come. What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing…”
– A Course in Miracles, Text, Ch.26, IX, 4,v.1-4

“On an island of gold, there are no ordinary rocks to find.”
– Ancient Vajrayana Buddhist saying

He sweeps the ground
with a golden wand,
waits for it to sing
of what is seen
through Earth’s blanket,
buried by transparent detritus
from more recent and forgetful eons.

Everything hidden
is being uncovered.
There will soon be no secrets,
and no end to mystery.

Sitting alone later
on his torn worn naugahyde throne
on a balcony overlooking the garden
growing under dancing rainbow strands
of Vajrasattva prayer flags
flashing translucent backlit
by a bright blue endless empty
stretch of sky,
he wonders why:
who sits overlooking
whose rainbow garden backlit by
what bright blue empty sky?

The temple bell rings us
into rocking up and down
on the rhythmic waves of sound
sent singing in remembrance
of the present,
a shower of sunlight
slick as wind
against our skin.

This constant baptism
of compassionate awareness
swallows the stars
in a greater,
more ancient
and unchanging light.

A procession of shamans
kneels every twenty-one paces,
shovels the cool moist soil
with prayerful hands,
plants sage between pine trees.

An American Dzogchenpa
sips pomegranate juice
from a gilded skull-cup,
gives thanks to fearful wraiths,
hungry ghosts and angry demons
gathered restless, mournful,
famished and lethal,
blows the human thighbone trumpet
swallows them in thunder
collapsing them into his arms
embracing them willingly,
feels them dissolve against his chest
like sand-castles in waves
sees them vanish
like a mirage upon arriving
where they never were.

Clouds part
before a cool breeze slips
welcome waking over
rainbow garden skin.

A bright blue endless
empty flash of lightning
penetrates everyone’s aloneness,
and it is done.

Metapolitical Round-Robin in I-Minor

My sadness about my country
is the same as
my sadness about our species
is the same as
my sadness about myself:
We invent fictions about our nation,
what it means to be human,
who we are.

Something within me conjures
from the infinitude of possibilities
an imaginary “self,”
then identifies with its own apparition
who propagates a personal narrative,
fabricating sub-characters into series of
friends, enemies and strangers
to populate a world contrived
to mask its fears
and perpetuate the plot.

This goes on and on for eons,
but goes nowhere.
It swallows the physical continuum
in a far more spacious vastness,
and it has no size.
Everything in it is always changing,
but there is never any thing in it.

Let go of these precious gems.
They do not need your assistance to sparkle,
nor you theirs to shine.
It is all self-arising
from title page to epilogue,
even our readiness for seeing
through the dreaming
into the unspeakable presence,
the incandescence of being,
the wish-fulfilling jewel.

My joy about my country
is the same as
my joy about our species
is the same as
my joy about myself:
We undo fictions about our nation,
what it means to be human,
who we really are.

Something with me recognizes
awareness itself.
The tale spontaneously
concludes.