Feeling To Infinity

Still, in the background of the scene, some birds
were singing along as if it all was real, though
nobody had provided them with a script.

I’ve heard myself claim that it’s all an illusion,
though lately I don’t pay myself much mind.

It may take an illusion to spot an illusion,
yet the birds in the film keep singing.

When a predator hawk swoops across the screen,
all the birds grow quiet. They aren’t confused
by philosophy — nobody makes a peep.

The bearded philosophers were puzzled how
such a thing could happen. In any case, they all
had to go now out and get new jobs as a result.

In the churches and temples, all the holy ones
were rejoicing, until both holiness and its lack
were consumed like so many chocolate Oreos.

Imagine: without any way to distinguish between
the elect and the masses, everyone became ordinary,
and thus peace at last broke out around the world!

To all of you storytellers – if you are creating new
myths for us live by, how about trying out that idea,
giving peace a chance like John and Yoko sang?

And Bob, don’t go getting yourself too excited!
Really, this is all just another one of your big ideas,
though maybe on a face or two, it will bring a smile.

In my town, there’s a dance studio directly adjacent
to the local cemetery. I smile at that juxtaposition
whenever I drive by on my way to the wine shop.

As many as eighty million died in the last World War.
They were just proxies in the internal battle between
two perpetually warring aspects of our own being.

We alternate back and forth between fear and love.
All of our politics and religions are mere reflections
of that struggle to determine which shall rule us.

Before we were born we all had beautiful names, which
we forgot as soon as we arrived here. All of the ensuing
confusion will finally end once we remember our names.

I don’t know why the light attracts my attention.
Light wants to go to light, maybe that’s the simple story.
Still, before light goes anywhere, it is already indivisible.

If there is any sound, it is my own sound, I hear myself.
I hear myself being the sound of the world, its music.
Mind can’t conceive of no beginning, yet it is so.

Some kind of overwhelming desire creates enough
pressure to produce a musical climax, which allows
galaxies, star systems, and planets to be conceived.

Before all of that, I am a piece of light, flickering
between the leaves. It is morning, that is all
I know, want to know. Yes, it is enough.

This stage was being disassembled, the props
were one by one being hauled away by invisible
stage hands — it had all been a theater production.

First the asphalt streets were being dug up, leaving only
the gravel beneath, then the deconstruction proceeded
to my old playground — reducing it to mounds of dirt.

Little by little, the old familiar world was disappearing.
Scene by scene, my past was systematically taken down
to make room for somebody else’s present, I suppose.

When I awoke I immediately understood the dream,
sometimes we can’t escape the obvious — the firing squad
takes aim, then fires, and we know what happens next.

How can I be nostalgic now for a time that never was?
I have been shown my future by a glimpse into my past.
All I have is what’s here now, and I really don’t have that.

Thousands of newly-hatched turtles emerge
from the sands and race to the safety of water,
though only a few survive the waiting predators.

Those few will swim out into the welcoming sea,
discovering there a wonderland of oceanic bliss
in which to glide, soar, thrive or even be eaten.

They don’t ponder their fate, nor do they realize
they are but another experiment in the laboratory
of nature, a tendril of evolving life and consciousness.

Just so, when we wade out into the water at dawn,
perhaps there is a flickering sense of returning home,
back to the sea from which we emerged so long ago.

We too are an experiment in the laboratory of mind,
projecting ourselves into life and relations to discover
which parts can be discarded and which preserved.

As we stand in the warm waters up to our waists,
enjoying the bliss of the gentle tidal push and pull,
we can ponder how the current experiment is going.

If we notice a long trail of plastic garbage floating by,
slimy with oil and carcasses, perhaps we need not
look any further in order to find our answer.

After each catastrophe that he announced,
he smiled at the camera and said “Amen!”

Somebody from the Gone Beyond keeps tapping
us on our shoulder, but we pay them little mind.

When our merry way finally catches up with us,
we’ll wear a practiced look of feigned surprise.

We hope that life will improve for us, not realizing
hope is the last piece of mischief in Pandora’s box.

We hear things will change if we change the way
we look at them, though most of us just look away.

When we run out of things to look at, we’ll take
a pill and fall asleep, but there’s more to see and say.

In the dream, somebody strangely familiar is staring
back at us in a mirror, smiling and saying “Amen!”

Awakening in the morning, we’ll just shake our heads
and get ready to repeat the same day over again.

One of those days we may see that whatever we’ve been
looking for is actually empty, as is the one who’s looking.

When the 10,000 lies can no longer move or persuade us,
our hands will fold open in one silent revolutionary act.

Someone from the Gone Beyond will gently exhale,
then move on to the next waiting card in the deck.

Other days, I’m more like Noah
looking out on the first day of rain.

Mad men are moving their hungry machines
closer to the steaming Yellowstone caldera.

They’re fracking for oil like junkies desperate for a fix,
regardless of the earth-shaking consequences.

The news broadcast these days seems more and more
like a screenplay entitled “Countdown to the Apocalypse.”

On the other hand, earnest prophets are claiming we are
on the verge of a mass awakening in consciousness.

It seems as if the whole planet is beset by a serious case
of cognitive dissonance — clinging to contradictory values.

We want to protect the environment, even as we exploit it
mercilessly to extract every ounce of resource for profit.

We claim we want peace, but then accumulate arsenals
of weapons capable of ending all life across the globe.

We pledge allegiance to egalitarian principles, but then allow
less than 1% of the population to hoard most of the wealth.

I could go on and on, but I’m sure by now you get my drift —
I’m probably just preaching to the choir, so let’s listen
to some Rumi, and forget about all of this.