Disrobe

Love is
The Great Disrober,
and, No …
I don’t mean
THAT,
for Goodness Sake …
You can do THAT
disrobing on
Your own time …

I’m talking about
The Black Robe
that hangs in
The Judicial Chambers
of Your Heart,

that You wear
in the Courtroom
of Your Mind
when You’re Judging
All That Is.

As If
All That Is
was Anything
Other
than another
Name for
The Divine,

when even
The Big Black Holy Books
You treat as Law
declare that

“God Is Love.”

So Who needs
another Name
beyond

Love
for All That Is?

Only Judges and
Holy Law Books.

So disrobe,
come off of the Bench
and out of the Courtroom.

Wear something
You Love.

(Photo by Majid Korang; UnSplash)

 

Poetic License

At the risk of
revocation,
I proffer my
Poet’s License
as follows:

Imagine
the Garden of Eden
with two Trees.
By my Poet’s Liberties
I will call them
The Tree of Judgment
(formerly known as
The Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil) and
The Tree of Love
(formerly known as
The Tree of Life.)

The Creator has
warned the Two
who live there,
Adam and Eve,
to avoid the Fruit
of the Judgment Tree
as if Their Lives
depended on it.

But the Two
have ignored
Their Creator –
curious Beings
They are –
and eaten
a dozen or so.

Now Adam is
huddled atop a rock,
awash in shame
because He would
rather meditate
than tend the Garden,
and He knows
He should work harder.

Eve is sulking
because it was She
who urged Adam
to eat from
The Judgment Tree.

And the Creator
has startled Them both,
springing from behind
another rock, and

grinning at Them
as any adoring
Mother might –
They were created
in His image –
Her and Him Fractals of
His and Her gorgeous Light!

He waves Them
to Herself,
laughing:

“I warned You about
that Tree of Judgment.
Lesson learned,
am I right?

Here,
I brought you both
some chocolate-covered
cherries I picked
especially for You,
my Precious Ones,
fresh from
The Tree of Love.”

(Photo by Solstice Hannan; UnSplash)

 

Stroller Boy

Out for My
thirty-minute trek
to the tune of
Indie-Rockin’ in
my earbuds,
My only concession
to the Exercise-a-holic
Twenty-Thousand-Steppers
colonizing my
Facebook page with
their boasts.

I’ll forgive Them
to the tune of
Slow Dances and
The Winnetka Bowling League,

or, even better,

I’ll float in
The Wisdom
of The Little One
I just stepped aside for
on the narrow trail,

pushed in a stroller
by a grinning Father,
body too young
to toddle.

But when He
looked at Me,
I knew that Little One,
eyes lit and
sweet half-smile,

may have had
a hundred Lifetimes
to loft His soul,

to light Mine
for a few
love-leaking seconds.

Thank you,
Little One,
and welcome back
to The Planet.

(Photo by Alyssa Stevenson; UnSplash)

 

Prayer

Perhaps,
like Me,
You were taught
that Prayer is
entreaty,

bowed knees and
bowed head, and
desperate
lifted hands.

I have come
to Believe,
for a forever
of reasons,
that

Prayer is a
headfirst dive
into the deep end
of a Pool of
Love,
bubbling with
the Creator’s
Laughter
that You ever
thought
there would be
any Answer other than

“I will give You
as much
YES
as You can bear,

until You are
persuaded that
All I ever desired
for You
was that

You learn to
swim in it,
and You
band together
with Your Friends
to prowl
around the Pool,

grabbing hapless
Bystanders and
flinging Them in
until They must
swim for Their Lives.”

(Photo by Jed Villejo; UnSplash)

 

Inexplicable

There are some
wild theories
about the Creator,

like the one where
there is only
an inexplicable
Bang,
with a billion
permutations
until You
latched on
to Your Mother’s
breast.

But I’ll tell You Mine,

where the Creator
is like Your Mother

when You
wrote that poem
or
rescued that spider
or
told that joke
that made the principal
smile
when You were
sent to her office
for something
You didn’t do,
but You couldn’t
rat on
the lonely boy
who did.

The Creator
smiled too, and
loved You
as much as
Your Mother,

and has since
that inexplicable
Bang.

(Photo by Gabe Pierce; UnSplash)

 

Gallery Walk

Canyon Road,
Santa Fe,
Galleries of

Love
stroked on canvas
with brush kisses,

Soul
sculpted into
metal and rock
with hands
dipped in
Ambrosia of
Heart.

Took me back
to the day before,
sitting in an
airport cafe,

worshipping
the Maker’s Art
in the shape of
every One-of-a-Kind
Face.

A Gallery
walking past
my table,

every bit as
heaven-sent as
The Bliss of
Canyon Road.

(Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn; UnSplash)

 

Brown Paper Wrapping

I was beyond despair,
descending into
a cesspool of
self-doubt
approaching
the snakery of
self-loathing.

I cried out for
divine deliverance,
and my prayer was
as clear as my breath
that breathed it:

“God,
or whatever Name
You’re using,
I need help
of the Heavenly sort,
wrapped in Power
and tied with
Ribbons of Wisdom
drawn from
The Wells of Eternity,
where there is
no Beginning and
no End.”

Next day
The Man In the Brown Truck
delivered a package.

Inside was
another package,
wrapped in the
plainest brown paper.

Nevertheless,
my Heart was Lit.
I knew I had
my Answer.

I tore with
trembling fingers.

A Gift from
The Creator of
All That Is!

Love, Light, Laughter!

I held it
in my hands
and stared at
my Face
in a mirror.

(Photo by Jess Bailey; UnSplash)

 

Bear Hug

Did you imagine
that Good and Evil
are Enemies?

That in Your
flagrant peccadillos
and frequent follies,
your glaring perfidies
and feckless failures,

You have taken
up the flag
of Love’s Nemesis,

and, wittingly or not,
signed on with
The Devil’s Legions?

Does this haunt You
into the long, dark
hell halls of Fear?

I’m learning to
let Love’s Laughter
chase the Legions
from My Imagination,
like shadows
from scarecrows.

There is nothing but Love!

And the Names
We Deify It with.

And Love loves
to play
Hide and Seek
with Us
when We fear
We have lost It.

It’s an Adventure
that draws
The Map of Love
into every
Corner of the Cosmos,

where Fear
has been hiding,

imagining It was
The Enemy,
when all along
all You needed to do
was embrace It
out of It’s corner,

until Love
sneaks up behind It
and wraps It
in a Bear Hug.

(Photo by Liz Fitch; UnSplash)

 

Saxophone Meditation

Imagine You have
entered a
concert hall,
and the Musicians
are tuning Their
instruments.

It’s a cacophony
of hums and pitches,
bows buzzing strings,
tremolos trailing
across cascades of
brassy belltones.

You sit quietly
in a corner and
begin to settle
into the Sounds,

silently stepping
Your Way
through them,
until You are
enticed by a single
tenor saxophone.

You spot
The Player,
leaning forward,
swaying a little,
hugging the
slow dance of
Leonard Cohen’s
“Hallelujah.

You close Your eyes
into darkness and
wrap Your Self around
every note,
until it’s
All You Hear.

Are You
finally, finally
learning to
Meditate?

(Photo by Gracious Adebeyo; UnSplash)

 

The Gift

I coveted
the Gifts
I saw in
Other Souls.

Some can dance
until roses
burst forth
at Their feet.

Some can paint
with brush strokes
that come alive
and wrap themselves
around Our eyes
with naked skin
that awakens
the Holiest of
Desires.

Some can play
Their instruments
with fingers
so full of Divine
Fire
Our ears
become stars
that light
Our Hearts
into a Cosmos
of Love that
leaves Us
breathless.

Then The Giver of
such Gifts
asked Me this:

Why do You covet
What You already have?

I’ve made Words
just for You.

Use these Words
to Ask Your
fellow Beings:

Have You opened
The Gift made
just for You?

(Photo by Kira Aufderheide; Unsplash)