AVANT SOUL

God Instructed the Human




God instructed the Child,

Don't extinguish the sun.							That was Monday.



God asked the Woman,

Don't stop the planet from spinning...or the spinning of your mind.



								That was Tuesday.



Would the rivers run in uniform lines?

Would the forests flourish in perfect rows?

Would you control the precise ebb,

The disappearing spool and thread of the tides?



							Wednesday.  That was Wednesday.



God instructed the Man,			

Would you parcel out the moonlight?

			One of your eyebrows is higher than the other.



	The greatest beauty of your days

	Doesn't always arise from your strenuous effort.



			One of your legs is slightly shorter than the other.

	
										That was Thursday.



...And the immediacy of your heart has no pre-measured giving.



			Instead of trying to control the universe,

			Focus on the essential.



							Friday.  That was Friday.



Would you have the snowflakes be identical?			

And flash floods. Would they be considered an act of treason?



	If you created this world, said God,

	No tornadoes would be allowed.  

	Volcanoes mustn't rage.

The pounding rain would never fall abruptly.

Winds would be prohibited from howling.



								So much for Saturday.



God asked the Human,

Who said the universe would conform

To the enormity of your tiny expectations?

		Where is it written that you could order the universe

		Better than the universe itself?



Want beauty?  

It isn't by force of your design.



Sometimes, perfection is like the coral's undersea landscapes,

Spun of fairy dust and the mortar of God's sweat...



						        Sunday. Let us praise all unpretentious Sundays.
		

Sometimes, what is most lasting is not what you treasure most...


	Sometimes, perfection will spin out 


like the dazzling heads of sunflowers



	and nod to your soul 



There is no answer to the mystery of Creation

Give praise and thanks and honor your place





while you are here





Love Letter from Infinity



Were you to beseech laughter from angels,
To behold a universe through God's ancient eye,
To recognize undercurrent rivers 
	flowing in each electric atom,
You still would not fully understand.

You're going to ask me how your actions affect those 
Beings you will never meet, greet or know about
And I will reply that they do –

You're going to ask me how your actions ripple 
In a pond of consciousness, to touch shores 
You will never see, sail to, or set upon
And I will reply that they can –

You're going to ask me how your actions
Are like cascading flowers released like butterflies to the heavens
Each with a tiny parachute of love to embrace a stranger along the way
And I will reply, that your deepest being is nourished
By the nectar of kindness and beauty –

You're going to ask how it is that, without air, food, or water
Every facet of your being exists in immortality, 
Where it continues to blossom in all the goodness of your soul
And my eyes will simply well with tears of light
Spilling out into a darkness waiting for seeds of understanding –

It is sublime and just as well 
That we cannot see how wondrous are your simple works
It is fitting and appropriate that we cannot grasp
The mightiest of labors which breathe into the core of life itself, 
Into the hallowed sanctum of every atom –

Lord God and Goddess,
Keepers of Realms beyond my frail and pitiful actions,
Thank you for making this Creation its ultimate mystery
Where my art may spill like honey from a chalice
Which can never be emptied 

For like consciousness itself, 
You sustain the essential riddle of existence
All embracing, all blossoming, all radiant, 
Beyond the dualities of expression, to enlighten every wayward soul






Embrace the World

Embrace the world

How can there be any separation
From all that you see —
How can you hold yourself distant
From the vision of your embrace?

Did you receive a notice in the mail
That all the poverty, the malaise of the human spirit,
Is somehow kept from your sheets,
Your forms, your triplicate ghosts
Which insulate you from monstrous suffering?

In your bed, in that collective unconscious
	of your many fleeting lovers,
There's a larger body more devouring 
Than any who might swallow you whole,
Who will eat you out of your precious shell
To remind you that the perilous veil of difference
Between heaven and damnation
Is the hell through which you keep yourself alone.

We sleep with you. We walk the streets 
Desolate, ragged, begging, bleeding, 
And before you clean us up
	and send us home to Mother,
First awaken to the illusion that those tumbled from grace,
	those who are refugees from kindness
	those who have fallen prey to miseries and misfortunes
	those who you insist are not of your human family
Are not your concern.  Oh....Really?

Embrace the world. 
In its darkness,

The tiniest light which ekes through chains 
	of shining armor
Which you wear in tattered spiritual rags of self-importance


Link you now:

	To every beggar and king,
	To every priest and prostitute,
	To every politician and saint

Until, blinded by the multifold millions
   of God's changing faces

You are born anew in kindness


To love the world as yourself.