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necessity of joy's ardor
I feel like a loaf of bread,
brown from the oven
hollowed out from the
heat of Your love.
Tears splash dutifully on the page,
necessity of joy’s ardor
I dust off flour,
remembering I was
baking
or was I writing poetry?
in this room
they are one and the same.
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- after September 11
Beloved,
you’ve flattened me –
ironed me clean and soft
laid me out to sun bleach
with the other tired angels.
I know I’m not alone
and most of the things
I could say
sound vain and pretentious
so my voice has been stilled.
but not-speaking makes me ill
or is it not-crying
in this time where madness
has taken hold of us
by the necks
and shaken us still.
We must find a new resilience
and an old wisdom,
do not throw us to the streets, Lord,
like a forgotten dog.
I used to write lovesongs to You
full-sure You would meet me
and touch my hand –
now I know not
if this civilization
will make it
across the next square
of the game.
so I’m numbed my
amazed pain
with shock.
Oh God, I need You more now
than ever
I cannot afford to be
self-conscious,
sick, vain, worried, attached, needy.
time is pure now
running light between
me and You
and I treasure
each splendid moment.
but I’m sick and old and tired
figure out a way for me God
and I promise
I won’t turn off the spout
I’ll pray Baba,
I’ll pray –
can you do everything else?!
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Baba Center 5/01
The bliss knocked my thoughts over
like a bunch of bowling pins
the night breeze sings into me
like I am the flute.
--the player?
oh Krishna – this longing
has become ridiculous
I appear like a hippopotamus
on tightrope
a dragon breathing flowers.
tired – exhausted like a rusty pipe
which can only withstand
so much
blazing water through it,
I split and crack
open.
I cry.
these tears are the weariness
of old feet, coming home
coming home endlessly to You.
they are the frayed sleeve
of my coat
which is rubbed across
my chin
in a thousand contemplations
they are ears which
have forgotten
and learned essential languages
that heard a tune, caught it
on themselves like a cloth catches a branch
and won’t let go –
well, it is always the same tune
in another key or candle
and the story is always the eager
youthful willing soldier
meeting the village maiden
a spark of ecstatic
dancing
and trillions of children issue forth
to complicate the universe
with questions
about faith.
still I’m dancing at another wedding
while the nerves of my eyes are
racing against time’s hammer
to see the moon
and the merciful light of God
forsakes me not
even as I ransack His
storehouse
seeking images and idols –
but He has left me only rubble
I sigh, fall into the dust
crumpled in the sign of mourning
and the glory touches my lips
like a kiss,
a flower, a drop
of dew.
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a rough gem
seems i must write a new poem
when i love new and serious sweet
when the bomb goes off in the heart
releasing the poison and the grief
and the lotion, the motion, the potion
of love.
oh yes,
you have touched me
and now a vine has grown between
my belly and yours
which is silent,
invisible,
carrying nourishment
of ages
and healing
of ice and clean,
warm and vibrant release
you are elegant in your
eccentricity,
mad and merciful
a rough gem
which found its way into my palm.
now i come to love you
and it is grand
how to thank a blessing
when it comes
in the form
of man.
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leave a gift
been waiting to see am i pregnant
felt real good inside
like a bushel of flowers
in one of those old round baskets
they delivered fruit in
back in the old days.
like that smell --
the oily scent of paint
inside the theater
and being backstage
and you're just 13
and the guy you like
is 16 and every now and then
he treats you like a woman
and you thrill...
i've been waiting to see
the tests said no
but there is no blood
maybe i can't let go.
holding this last little crevice of your presence
close
this maybe in time
maybe you'll leave a gift
which could be a twist
of fate.
just the other day, laughing
you told me another name you liked.
funny - i had not told you
i'm waiting.
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Pluto's Tail
Last night my mind was askew
tipped by wisdom's overreaching
into reflections of moon and planets
which had no business being at my window.
still I saw the underbelly of the sky
and Pluto's tail sailing by
the red explosion grazed my eyes
leaving me with soot
and the spit of some God
on my pillow.
wholistic light
leads me to dark.
buttocks flip to breasts,
daisies upturn to roots and sod
man is woman
and woman is man.
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Morning After Chaos
My being is in
some kind of swoon,
a deep sobering licking love.
I am upset in my applecart
and I am full of tears
wishing I had known this man
since I was small
and hoping I will know him
'till I am old.
To say, "I want to marry you"
is simply a way to say
I am half of you and you are the other -
and how can I overcome this impossibility
of 2 separate bodies.
We come to the precipice but cannot jump
Oh God - the predicament.
I have no idea if we will fall or rise in love as they
say
but the foam of the ocean is sweet
and the angels are giggling in mercy and light.
These poems which seem so urgent
Fold themselves into my imagination
For whom? For how long?
when my silence merges
with infinity's song
mingling with all of
creation...
listening is the power
over speaking
for my ears can take in
crickets, planes, birds, wind, lake,
rustling, the rise and
fall of evening's dark...
Speaking has but one voice -
of my single heart.
until my heart givesup its song of
limitation
desire, complaint, expectation,
it will be different
to speak than to listen.
the day the stirrings inside
match the turning
of the universal tide,
listening and speaking
will be one.
when the swallow's wings thrumming
is my heart
when the minty breeze lifting
is my breath.
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I imagined
Oh Baba, I wake wide open like a window which has let
the air in all night long.
It is warm and wind-filled here, my heart rests on my
belly like a cloud.
Last night was a gift. I remember sometimes before Mark
reached me like
this, like scooping into me like the spoon to the cream.
It was sweet, with the edge of sorrow, like all things
that come and go.
He is so not mine. Yet for an hour I imagined.
And he was the imagination and the dance of the heart
at one.
He permits me to be near him that way. He permits himself.
Turning his heart and mind into one life and giving
it to me with eyes open.
Almost never did he unwind from me. When he did for
a second, it was a
shock like cold water.
And he could come back in a moment. He chose to.
I told him I was scared - when he was like this: soft,
intimate, opening
his mind to me completely, from the inside. He laughed and said, "How
can
you stand it?"
And he said it's like all things like this. Love will
end. Like the call ends.
But it didn't end. I hung up. I lifted and widened until
the room was
full of roses.
And they soft-bedded me all night.
Lately, the consciousness has flown into high trees
and nestled there most
easily.
I have never felt so one with wind and sky.
Mark's gift, like a pleasure of greens and sorrow, rushes
into me, meets
me, tosses me into that vastness which is You Baba.
It reminds me how very much I want you, God.
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lovers due
I've earned the right to whisper
heartland's mysterious poetry
into my lover's ear.
I've crushed the vain desire
to cascade my body into places
where dikes and dams
contain me.
I've created and recreated
my mind,
straining it through a sieve
of decency.
the world has turned on its axis
several times.
I've counted on it.
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A Stillness Overcomes Me
8/99
a stillness overcomes me
a cloud sails beyond darkness,
my Beloved is smiling
and withing the scope of His smile
Universes are born.
when He yawned, the planets
fell from His teeth like jewels,
spinning like rafts
in the surf of skies
and tides of thought
poured like liquor
from His lips
the thoughts split like droplets
each finding a place to live,
sprouting in many heart-abodes.
we are very unusual amongst
the creation
each unique, no flower like
any other flower
yet we are one and the same
inwardly
in the surf and surging
of our hearts towards God
how delightful each of His rays,
the rainbow would be bereft
if any color fell from
its arc
each strand of color
is perfect in its sun--spotted way,
when the color has been
completely submerged
in the pure Light
we, as thought, will return
to our Master
as docile as any milking cow,
trotting after its keeper
to manger,
for night.
there, we find ourselves, soft,
in that place
that stillness overcomes.
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God's perfect motion
God's perfect motion
has brought you here
near the broken bed
on the straw floor
with the pecking hens.
a riot of glory
tears through the sky
it is the tears of
the rickshaw driver
of the night,
colored with stars
and masked planets.
there is a secret sound
of dancing,
a mashing of minds
a splitting of revelations
a nakedness
a spitting,
and we are born
in another perfect motion
liquid,
exquisite
child.
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Millenium
the gifts keep coming
like sheeves of swans across waters,
more abundant and full and fleecy
than we thought we could receive
in the heart-lands.
the dreams entwining
with realities of blues
the shapes of time colliding
with the unexpected.
if you look at the news, you'll say the world's gone
crazy
but honey, it was always mad.
look inside, that's the only way
that ever had a real possibility
of being home.
this turning of corners
into new zeros
will make us infinity
and nothing
if we have the willingness.
reach deep into yourself
and draw from the ancient text
there will be opportunity
to read it
at the sacred table of
the new humanity.
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Baba's Eyes
I saw the snow
each flake a nation,
each nation a spasm
of the human dance.
I saw the magic
contracting from its glow
seeking worlds beond worlds
hoping for some relative peace
in the threaded field of time.
I saw your eyes
these few millimeters of reality
sinking their truth into me
while ribbons of fantasy
were added and subtracted
and added and subtracted
from me
like a flower
molting petals in fall.
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Intimacy
3/4/00
You were gliding in the Gondola
ferried by your many lovers,
and I especially noticed the way
the light touched Your face.
It danced in and away from You,
as if it could not bear to separate
its glow from Yours.
kaleidoscoping beauty
and sending my heart into safekeeping
within Your promise.
I saw You closer than I ever had before
As if You'd heard my deep request
You offered me Your intimacy
while sitll showing
You were God.
It's as if when I first met You,
You made Yourself my best friend
and I took You to tea with me
and You held the book for me
and made sure the light was just right
before we read together.
Now I know You are God
truly know it more each day --
but in becoming truer in my Knowledge
I was losing You,
my intimate friend
because of the awe
growing in me
like tall corn.
but this moment,
You were in view
supreme loveliness
showing me Your natural colors,
and letting me know
that the light that touched You
was the very same
as Your lovers
and how they reach to touch You
across oceans, canyons and stars.
Beloved,
I dare to wish
that one day
I will be the very light
upon Your skin,
with only a breeze between us.
then even that veil will fall away
and there will be nothing
between us
at all.
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Khorshed
8/99
you have gone now
who will carry the sound of His voice
in their mind?
the Ancient One's silence
will be felt more and more deeply
now, on the earth.
You, who in later years clumbered about,
reaching and touching
reaching and touching,
us.
who in younger days
climbed into His heart
to live
and stay.
we felt the drops of His grace
as you shook your shoulders
from His shower,
and we drank them as
You told your story.
Oh Mandali,
Sweet friends of the Beloved,
you are passing through now
like the rain sliding down glass
I watch through the window of my heart
crying as the trail forces me back
into the God inside
dry, ancient, to be dug.
Your succulent stories were for the taking,
we ate them like fruit, mango juice on our chin....
Now so many gone,
yet, memories close,
your gifts
not forgotten
as you rock in His arms
finally
the bitter trail of truth
comes to Life.
Fly dear Khorshed --
you who in crippled last years
held Him to you like an apron.
certain, solid.
I will not forget you Khorshed.
Oh yes fly now,
and as you fly
spread the memory
of His voice over us
like a canopy of stars.
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I Have Caught the Bug
it is such an opportunity
and in 20 years
or 200 --
such inspiration may not
be there...
so I write now
and sing now
in the glory of
Meher Baba's advent.
His circle is so close
to Him
and I am one who
has come close to His
circle
so I have caught
the bug.
The bug of longing for His pleasure
Union -- I've given up
the thought of long ago,
Liberation, realization --
all these are words
useless, lifeless
But His pleasure --
that is a reality,
I can feel, hear, and
see.
I saw Your pleasure in
Bhau's eyes tonight,
Beloved
and heard it in his words
and felt it in his caress,
and that felt good
Beloved,
that felt like my life
had a reason,
for a moment, in the realm
of reality, my life
had meaning.
How rare and precious,
Now if I saw You as
clearly in all people
as I do, in Your circle,
Beloved,
my life could have meaning
every day,
and since I cannot
chase after Your
circle members
as they have no need for me
as I am just a trouble to them --
I must take up
another way.
I must determine
how to live this New
Life for You Beloved,
because in so doing,
I will give You pleasure
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mixed up shoes
Your air
like a bath of summer roses
liquids me
into ocean
while Your water
spits into me
like fire
and covers me
with the sharp sting
of nettles.
such is the confusion
of elements
around You, my sweetness
where everyone
is dancing.
The shoes have been
all mixed up
at the door,
and all leave with
unfamiliar footwear!
What was bitter, now tastes sweet,
and sweetness becomes salt.
the one thing that remains
the same
is saying goodbye to You, my Lord.
That foul breath of thought,
ocean cannot extinguish
and I avoid
like a small child
on burning pavement
dances
to avoid the heat.
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How will I ever unravel
the mystery
of laughing out loud?
Who will muse me
when the willow wanders
into new destinies?
Does she creep in silence?
There was a day she laughed aloud.
How do we know when a lesson is over
When a gift is given
When the tiumph is truly won?
I take on the color of those near to me
The cold caked snow, the dim horizon
each is a personality, a music waiting to be sung.
And your colors were my favorite
My favorite hue.
How to hue myself?
How will I ever unravel the mystery
of laughing out loud?
We can only be the birds that we are -
ostrich, peacock, swallow,
all substantially different.
You are that red arrow, I embraced with my heart
The drops on the snow made rainbow love to the sky-reflection
I fell in love with that reflection
my art, called it our art
for it was aranged by you
and played by me.
What now? Who am I without the defining glow?
And what will you do with all those muddy ponds
that come to offer themselves to you as looking-glass?
We are strange and beautiful birds
lost in flight
now losing sight of eachother
lost into light.
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The Small Things
2/1/00
Great swathes of sand
Soaked with ocean love
retract and grow by turn
as lace-like, waves
groan -- over -- and over themselves
writing the weather of time
as patterns on the land.
Such messages in archives
impermanent as we,
yet known alone
by God, eternally.
So too my Lord
I wonder --
and by turns I know
as the ancient waves
roll over in my heart
I wonder...
if You know the details of my life
the tiny graceful lacing on my soul
the knit one pearl two moments
are they too by You seen?
Do You know the flecks of change
my temperament reveals
my temperature adjusting by degree?
I wonder if You know
the times I bit my tongue
and speech it did not hasten
down the gangplank of my throat
to hurt another soul
carelessly.
Did You see the moment
that there was more strength this time
within me than had been a week ago
my will now had capacity
to adapt my mood to cheer
a smile could appear
for a face I still found hard --
to love.
They talk of spiritual progress
on the path
while all I have
are these minute-by-minute reports ---
I feel You surging in me
all night long
And I hear You singing in the morning
I notice You on my in-breath
And I rest on You on my out-breath
I abide in You like a nest in winter
While the wild and angry shrieks
of sky may fall about.
You, my Lord kiss me
With angel finesse
While I cry for lack of kissing
Never knowing I am blessed.
You my Lord stay near me
with infinite calm
While I gasp at being abandoned
by a human form.
Sometimes I wake up
Like this moment
And I feel You push my pen
I feel You digest my food
I feel You as the strength within my food
and the inspiration of my pen.
At these moments I know You are also there
in the tiny things - perhaps especially then.
JAI BABA!
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one grand motion
2/00
wide bands of solar sound
bounce from the bottom to
the brim of me
cosmic joy like layered sweetness
upon sweetness
resisting and resting the moon,
wrecking her and rescuing her
in one grand
motion.
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FEEL
you awake on tiptoe
stretch like a leopard
turning regretfuly
from the moon.
you walk through the market
enjoying the simple sounds
and tasting the fruit
of the women.
You reach without anchor
for sky.
You sit in a posture
it is turquoise and silver
it is shit on the pavement
it is why you were born
you scream silence to cells
you wish death to your mind.
a patch of heaven
breaks through from skies
you gulp it in one breath
and feel.
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delighted
I am delighted at possibilities
and am teaching my heart
to roar
melodies of hope.
Once long ago
I was a virtuoso
in this key.
now I am an acorn
that forgets it was an oak.
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rely on thoughts that seem
pure
As I blend into God
more
I cannot relate in
the way
I had done before.
Who to speak to
if I am You?
I am in some
half- shell posture
not fully alive to God.
not fully dead to myself.
I need guidance to turn
and the heaven's book closes
above my head
there is silence at shore.
Yet remarkable moments
are pushed through my pen
And so I rely
on thoughts that seem pure.
or that
which I cannot see, hear or feel
which dies and grows
in sleep.
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gloriously
the moment I sang
my invitation
You entered
without forewarning
or pretense.
You filled my eyes
with friendship
and my heart resided in Your
vest for some time.
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ready
a quilted airiness
completes me today
a golden bird
sits on the edge of
the sanctuary.
my heart is ready
to leap in one bound
into the waiting arms of
eternity
and the golden bird
is ready
to sing
as for a thousand
weddings.
All Poems Copyright 1999 and
2000 by Gabriella Tal
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