POETRY AND SPOKEN WORD
Love letters to life
Hafiz writes ‘a poet is one who can pour light into a spoon and raise it to nourish your beautiful, parched holy mouth’. This is what I aim for and one of those mouths that need the nourishment and the light is my own. There is deep magic in writing, the words unfold like a flower and as they unfold my heart unfolds with them. Things that I did not know I knew appear on the page and there is light there for me and for others. That which has unfolded does not always remain in my accessible knowing but it remains in the words and the spaces between the words. When written they paint a picture which arises inside of the reader, when spoken they dance through the ears and cells leaving fractal patterns that we can ride upon.
“When I try to write about love the pen breaks and the paper slips away” - Rumi
I leave these reminders for myself and for others. They are my markers on the path so I can find my way in the dark when I do not see clearly and the mist hangs thick around the one sun. They are love letters to the source of life, that which brought me here and will have to take me home. They are a testament to the heart that seeks and the heart that finds. They are one human’s meeting point with the great infinite and an attempt to navigate through the impossible complexity of being. They are where I meet my sadness and my fear and what I find beyond that gate. They are a place to feel the unfathomable tragedy of the mindless destruction of this perfect jewel of the sacred earth and my way to make peace with that so that I can move with an open chest and dignity in my feet and hands.
“There is more here than we can imagine in this multi-dimensional fractal playground of gods.”
What I write in prose and in poetry, what I speak in recorded work is the closest that this poor soul knows to pure creativity and there are few mysteries greater than that self-arising force. I have an obligation to write, to meet what life asks me do because life is endlessly creative. I have been given everything, my breath, my friends, my children, water, food, everything. I have been given a body, given essence to love and dance with. The very least I can do is to try to say thank you. My most effortless and creative thank yous are my poems and the words I speak in praise of the source of love itself. This humble offering is part of my giving back to the life that gave me everything. Perhaps it is life turning to see itself, to bear witness to the wonder that is me and you, that is stars and planets and whales and beaches. Life turning to meet life in deep love. The mystery within dancing with the mystery that surrounds us and contains us in all possible ways.
“Love is yours and you are loves.”
God, I get so carried away. Keep it simple Ben. I love being alive – all of it, even the parts that I hate or whine about (does that make any sense?). I am floored daily by the weird wild fucking ride that is incarnation in a body on this earth in this time. I try to write about it. You will have to decide if what I write is useful to you. It is useful to me. I am not a polished poet, I know very little about the ‘right’ way to write a poem. Students of literature may even refuse to call it poetry. I don’t have a choice. I am asked to write and write I will. May the words guide you to your own knowing, to your own heart. May you be well, in all possible ways, may you be well.