What's Wrong with the Music?

Too fast a waltz? Switch to Viennese.
Too slow instead? A cross-step suits it well.
And if it isn’t either one of these,
a rotary, or box-step should be swell.
Do slow and heavy backbeats make you blue?
Try nightclub two-step there, instead of swing.
You’ll find there’s always something you can do
to anything the DJ cares to bring.
So take the music as your guide—you’ll find
there’s nothing wrong with anything you hear,
and with Life’s melody become entwined,
trusting that He who sings it holds you dear.

[The branches that are Cut away]

after Emily Dickinson

The branches that are Cut away –
May seem a heavy Loss –
And roots that – unbelieving – seek –
May chafe within the Pot –

The tree may scorn – to be a shrub –
Nearer Ground than Sky –
May grow only – longing for –
A false Immensity –

The Gardener – He knows –
And shows us through our Scars –
However small this Life may be –
Yet still it may be – Art –

Saraswati

Once every day
your mouth becomes a shrine

The Goddess resides there
for a few moments
makes herself at home
feeds her swan
tunes her vina
listens to your words
and gives them the gift of truth

Keep this space holy for her

Say that you are full of poetry and wisdom
Say that you are a river purifying all you touch
Say that you love God

Say these things until they are true

The Last Wise Man

I have no gold to crown Him King,
I have no frankincense, no myrrh.
I cannot bring Him anything
that Lord or Baby might prefer.

But still I have my place in line,
behind those Three who went before,
and many thousands since besides,
who spread their offerings on His floor.

What they have brought I cannot see—
what gems, what fine and noble deeds,
what eloquence of poetry
to pray through strings of jeweled beads.

And here am I—my hands are full
of nothing good that I can see.
Poor possessions, few and dull
accomplishments, a broken knee,

a mood that’s unpredictable,
a few bad habits, wandering thoughts…
but something irresistible
won’t let me turn away. I cross

the threshold. Here the light of day
shines from a cradle, showing me
what gifts are tucked amidst the hay,
there for Him and me to see.

And all of them in Truth appear,
what gold and jewels cannot hide,
what royal gifts beyond compare:
a thousand hearts, with mine beside.

Miscellaneous Rubaiyat

[On reading alternately The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and The Bhagavad Gita.]

Each day begins the same as those before:
With meditation, sometimes less or more.
But ere the Dawn has opened up the sky,
I’ve always knocked against the inner Door.

What seems to be the truth turns out to be
The outermost of bodies—one, two, three!—
That in the earthly, astral, causal planes
But veil and hide the Truth—and That is me!

No matter what is given me to do,
My ego tries to grasp and bend and skew
It to itself as though my very Pow’r
To do at all did not descend from You.

How can I find You in the Summer’s heat?
In Winter’s cold? In dust beneath my feet?
How can these pains exist when in Thy Grace,
All worries, pains and fears taste only sweet?

Descant

after Emily Dickinson

My life sounds as a Melody,
though often poorly played —
Untuned it seems, and fickle —
Now jocular — now sad

But then a Higher octave comes,
Where sings a sweeter Note,
If I could only listen — close —
More delicate than thought —

This harmony — Exquisite —
Recalls my soul — to be
No mortal dragging on the earth
But singing — in the Sky

Give and Take

The Lord giveth,
and the Lord taketh away.
And occasionally the Lord hideth things
in extremely sneaky ways.
One might even wonder-eth
whether His memory
is-eth quite what
it used-eth to be.

What the Lord giveth,
I taketh, and what He taketh,
I let-eth Him have back.
And it seems-eth the things I have lost-eth
might-eth perhaps have been-eth
not quite so good for
me to have had-eth
in the first place.

And the things that I have-eth,
(that He gave-eth and I took-eth)
often are-eth
the things that I wanted-eth not.
Or so I thinketh-ed before,
but now they appear-eth
to be-eth what
I needed-eth most.

And so when He hideth
the things that I seeketh,
I’ll stop-eth and thinketh
before I complaineth,
and maybe assumeth
that the Lord knoweth
rather more (don’t laugheth!)
than I do-eth.

Ghazal: To Shiva

And as I begin, I bow to Shiva.
May these lines soar, even now, to Shiva.

In darkness, delusion, despair or death,
look, through the light in your brow, to Shiva.

A mountain falling in love with the sky:
Parvati making her vow to Shiva.

Thou male-female, creator-destroyer,
single-duality: Thou Two, Shiva.

I could, like Ganesha, travel the world,
or cut to the chase, and bow to Shiva.

D.I.Y.—Destroy It Yourself, a book
not for dummies, titled: How To Shiva.

Om Namah Shivaya, I bow and sing,
my soul a transcendent shout to Shiva.

The end of life, the end of creation,
we will all return, somehow, to Shiva.

Tandava dancing, this music, this poem—
this life, an offering now, to Shiva.

The Lord’s Instructions to His Creation

Back when the world was new and souls were still
finding their way into their bodies, all
the creatures of earth and sea and sky approached
Lord Brahma, the Creator, for instruction.
“Teach us,” they pleaded, “how it is that we,
so new to these forms, new to this world,
can act in righteousness.”
                                          The Lord was pleased,
and beckoned each to come alone to Him.
To each He whispered—softly, so that none
but it could hear—that sweetly rumbling Word,
the cosmic AUM.
                              Contented, one by one,
they left Heaven, returned to their homes
in forest and field, in sea and sky,
and in devotion, took their Lord’s advice.

The snake, its nature sinuous and stretched,
heard in that Word a slithering, a sudden
bite. This it practiced.
                                     But the elephant,
thundering in its confidence, had known
in that same call a majesty of tusks
and trumpets, of tree trunk limbs. Boldly thus
it lived.
              And so it goes throughout creation.
The tiger prowls and kills its prey, the bird
hears melodies and sings them bright and clear,
fish swim, the deer, caught grazing, bounds away,
but all obey that inner voice they hear.
Thieves follow the sound to rich men’s purses,
sailors to the sea, soldiers to war,
and kings to Dharma.
                                   Every being finds
its nature in this sound, and honors it,
and in the honoring draws closer to
the source.
                   And after countless ages, then
at last, the sage, his spine held like a rod,
controls his senses, draws within, and finds
he hears again, complete, the Word of God.

And As I Walk

I walk, and as I walk, the bridge appears,
a single step, a single inch, but just
enough to keep me going through my fears,
to keep me going as I learn to trust.
With surer step, the surer base I find,
a faster pace, the faster comes my track.
But timid going, timid heart and mind,
draws the long proceeding trail back.
Beneath my feet, beneath my sight there lies
a vast, unlighted, fastly falling dark.
I raise my eyes, my rising, lightning eyes
and follow the far rising, lightning spark
that calls me, draws me, onward, upward, lo!
to that far shore, where God calls me to go.

The Path to the Infinite

This is the path to the Infinite.

This is the spine,
held straight as a rod,
revealing the path to the Infinite.

This is the energy
given by God,
that flows up the spine
held straight as a rod,
ascending the path to the Infinite.

These are the chakras
that subtly transform
and govern the energy
given by God,
as it moves up the spine
growing rigid and taut,
as it climbs the steep path to the Infinite.

These are the vrittis
that swirl and storm,
obstructing the chakras
and treating with scorn
the limitless energy
given by God,
till it’s lost in the spine
now curving and bowed,
and yet longing still for the Infinite.

These are desires
that have taken a hold
and revolve in the vrittis
inflicting great harm
on the chakras whose power’s
now used to deform
that once-perfect energy
given by God
and trapped in the spine
which is tied up in knots,
and can’t see the path to the Infinite.

This is the ego
becoming enthralled
with fulfilling desires
so brazen and bold
that stir up the vrittis
in skirls and swarms,
upsetting the chakras
and leaving them torn,
dispersing the energy
given by God,
away from the spine
which has sunk to its root,
and can now hardly think of the Infinite.

This is the Guru
who calls us His own,
who teaches the ego
to not be controlled
by desires no matter
how glittering gold,
for they only form vrittis
with misleading charms.
But the chakras can now
become free to transform
and uplift the energy
given by God,
realigning the spine
that was so distraught,
and regaining the path to the Infinite.

And this is the devotee,
no longer alone,
who bows to the Guru
that shines like the sun,
dispelling the darkness
of ego and all of
our fears and desires
that once had us stalled,
in the vrittis that now
are dissolving their forms,
allowing the chakras to
open, reborn,
to the flow of the energy
given by God,
ascending the spine
once more straight as a rod,
and completing the path to the Infinite.

Goodnight, Gita

At night, Lord, when I go to rest,
remind me that I did my best.
Remind me always: every day
—in work or leisure, pain or play—
that everything I’ve done I do
so I can give it back to You.

Help me see that all my actions
(taken wholly, or in fractions)
are just simply mine to do—
results of them are up to You.
Then even when I’m in the act,
I’ll feel Your presence as a fact.

Today’s behind me: bad or good,
honored or misunderstood,
all of it I now release,
relaxing, and then finding peace
here in the thought that if I could
have done it differently, I would.

There’s one more bucket under bridge,
one less pudding in the fridge,
one more mistake I won’t replay
(or, not in that specific way),
and maybe one more good deed done,
a smiling glance that cheered someone.

So there You go, and welcome to it.
That’s my day, and it’s the truest
thing to say that I don’t mind
You taking credit for the kind
of things that every day I do:
they’re all just stepping stones to You.

When I Am Young Again

for Asha

When I am young again,
I will be old.

Born wrinkled,
gray by kindergarten,
a different kind of unsteadiness
in my first toddling steps.

Or, perhaps,
I will look like other children.
Until you look into my eyes.

My eyes will remember before my voice can tell.
Remember the long road
of learning to use a body,
and then learning how not to use it,
and then letting it go.

When I am young again,
my mind and my heart
will seem two separate beings.
But I will remember the truth,
and I will remind them.

When I am young again,
I will play politely with toys,
my parents smiling over me,
but I will not cry
if they take the toys away.

I will look ahead into the memory
of my earlier later years,
and see the long procession of toys,
of jobs, relationships, challenges, glories—
I will see them come,
and I will see them go.
And I will be free to laugh.

When I am young again,
the distance in my eyes
will not seem far away,
but will offer us space
for our souls to meet.

When I am young again,
I will not hesitate
to grow older,
greeting each year as an old friend.

And as I grow older
again,
I will marvel.

I will marvel at God’s play in the world,
and at His expanding light within me,
drawing me ever more joyfully onward,
until that final, blessed moment of freedom,

when I am young again,

when I am eternal.

The Overworked Sonnet

When all goes well and does not greatly strain
My efforts, skill, or allocated time,
Then I with my abilities remain
Content, nor driven greater heights to climb.
But as my obligations multiply,
My talent rapidly becomes undone,
I see how far beyond the grasp of my
Own competence my aspirations run.
’Tis then in no small panic I retreat,
To find within the source where power flows,
For Man cannot accomplish any feat,
But that his God through him has made it so.
Lord, therefore, as I labor, grant to me
That I not rest, if resting forget Thee.

I Have a Magic Shoe

When I first heard that God was everywhere,
infinitesimal as well as infinite,
I worried about stepping on Him.

Never sitting on
or bumping into Him —
it seemed He was always hiding in my shoe.

I’d give Him fair warning, respectfully, with
plenty of time to vacate
and make room for my foot.

I never knew which shoe He’d be in, though,
so I’d have to check.
Sometimes right, sometimes left,

and sometimes,
after a while,
both.

Not that I’d see Him, necessarily,
but I’d feel Him grinning back at me
each time I won our little game of hide-and-seek.

That’s when He changed the rules.
When I thought I knew where to expect Him,
He’d sneak into my pocket, surprising me

before I’d even picked up my shoes...
where He’d still be, of course,
the mischievous grin coming in triplicate now.

Accepting the challenge, I redoubled my own efforts,
carefully inspecting each article of clothing,
calling softly, “Ready or not....”

He was always ready,
naturally.
And always there.

Eventually — once he’d found his way
into the toothpaste,
and peeped out the spout of the tea kettle —

He started following me out of the house.
A world of hiding places, there,
discovered by ones and twos

behind clouds and buildings,
in music and the rumble of traffic,
the neighbor’s dog, the overgrown ivy.

People are trickier,
supplying Him with so many different masks.
But the more I look, the more He shows me.

We work together now,
playing on the same side.
Which just goes to show that

God will always come to you,
even, if needs be,
through your shoe.

O Lord, I Have Made a Mess

O Lord, I have made a mess.
It is for You.
Or so I assume,
given no apparent earthly purpose.

O Lord, I have made a mess.
If You inspire each devotee
according to his nature, his art,
then You must see in me a vast,
untapped potential for disarray,
for dashingly disordered disasters and missed marks.

A mellifluous messiferousness made manifest—
O Lord, I couldn’t have done it on my own.
You were helping, not just looking on,
so am I incompetent? Or blessed?

O Lord, we made a mess here, You and I,
for truly, among messes Thou Art this.
And even rubble hums with hidden life,
when You slip in and touch it with Your bliss.

So here I sit — in shambles — free from sorrow,
knowing You’ll help me clean it up tomorrow.