A friend and elder of the Psychosynthesis Trust community shares their latest poetry collection, New Beginnings. Influenced by the changing of the seasons from Summer to Autumn, the collection is accompanied by images taken by the author. May you find them moving and inspiring.
Getting Old
I know you feel as if you’re getting old now,
that the world is filling
with a new generation, new ideas,
new fears and uncertainties,
new needs and new priorities
but the Light of Spirit is constant,
it’s the just way people understand it that changes with each new age,
the love within it is ancient.
Anachronisms you may be, but so is God.
Ordinary People
The disciples weren’t demigods,
they were ordinary people,
people like you and me
who came across a man
who turned their eyes into saucers,
their ears into buckets
and lit their hearts on fire,
a person who was just like them
but was all a person could be
and all the person they ever wanted to be.
The quiet light
And what of the quiet light,
which comes unbidden
to fill my soul with beauty,
what of that? The light that
stills my heart and stays my hand
and which asks nothing in return for
changing the way I see my world,
a light that knows and understands,
a poem that’s always waiting to be written
yet has no words.
Break and repair
There’s a love within me,
not for one thing but for all things,
a love that does not create need, but which meets it
and I long to be one with this love even as I know it cannot be,
because this love makes itself known in the act of loving
so to know it I must live through what it loves,
make myself first among the lovelorn,
so this love will ever be the first to repair it,
breaking and repairing, the footsteps of my path,
the only way I know to move forward, the only way I know how
to understand what I am, why I am here and how great is my fortune.
An emissary
I was frightened, in fear for my life,
so I closed my eyes,
sat still and, as best I could,
I let the fears have their way,
it was difficult to stay with them,
I had to keep fighting the desire
to fall asleep as again and again
I reached the edge of consciousness
and then, half dreaming and half awake,
I saw a figure pass over me,
iridescent silver in an indigo sky,
as first I thought it was smiling,
then I realised it was just filled
with light, joy and peace
and my fears abated.
I have never really believed in angels,
but it doesn’t matter what I believe any more,
because now I know.
The Soul says
You see an old man
making his way
slowly up a steep hill,
he’s leaning heavily on a stick
and he has to stop every few paces
because he’s wheezing and coughing,
his hair is lank and long and so is his beard,
as he passes you, you think to yourself,
‘Poor man, his life has been such a failure.’
and all the while his soul is thinking,
‘What a brave man, he’s had a such difficult life
but this time around he hasn’t committed suicide’.
The amateur Gnostic
I knew I had a purpose here
but it was always and forever
beyond my understanding,
when I finally I accepted that it
would never explain itself to me
I had nowhere left to turn but faith;
an intuitive belief in something
for which I had no evidence
and I became a sort of amateur Gnostic,
then, far later than I had hoped, I found it,
purpose was a living light in the background
of my life that had been there all along,
a feeling, a knowing that I had no words for,
after that I became a sort of amateur poet.
An alternative world
For example: One that is no longer tarnished
and darkened by self-inflicted suffering and despair,
a world that shines as once it did, the jewel of the heavens,
the hope of the universe, host to life and singular in this respect,
a world where our fears, misgivings and struggles
are not played out between one another
but where they belong, within the self,
the place where we can understand our needs
and take responsibility for them in non-violent ways
that do not require the oppression or coercion of others,
all these things are possible if we fight the temptation to believe
that we are doomed, we are not, we are here to open to the Light of Love,
not to the attention and adulation of others but the Light of Love
and in so doing to show all creation what we are really made of.
Mortal fires
How can those who care
stop the world from burning?
We can’t, but we can find our way
to the inner threshold, then find the courage to cross it,
then find out that what’s here is not at all what we expected,
because here all things are impervious to mortal fires,
here is beauty, love, generosity and humility, honesty, truth and understanding,
here is courage, patience, gratitude and acceptance,
all glowing with colour and light, all waiting to be re-born
in those of us who will foster them.
Roses
I have lived in a house
that isn’t my home for far too long,
there are no roses here,
not like the roses I remember,
their colours were so deep
I could fall into them
and drink with their souls,
their perfume was like opium and
their thorns were so sharp
they pierced the hearts
of all who reached out for them.
Holy Communion
A poor woman walked into a Church
and the Priest invited her to take communion,
the woman gestured towards the communion-plate and said,
‘Father, those are biscuits’, then she put her hand on her heart and said,
‘This here is the body of Christ’.
Stillness
What use is a person
who has learned to be still,
who won’t take sides, or raise a hand
against even the worst of their enemies?
What use is a man of peace in a world of war,
or a wise woman in an age where nobody listens?
Their use is that they know another way,
a way they demonstrate in their attitudes and actions,
they do no harm, they help, they heal and they love,
they are the torch bearers for the future
and their children and their children’s children
will be the citizens of a new world.
Postscript
A visitor
I felt you come into my room last night,
there was the slightest change in the air pressure,
and a barely perceptible sinking in the mattress as you sat down,
you folded your hands in your lap then watched quietly over me
until the morning came and filled the windows with light.
Rhyming
At this time we seem to have
become a poem that no longer rhymes,
but the great muse, whose other name is love,
still wants us to, so each time one of us reaches out
to another in love we make a couplet which becomes
part of the soul-poem we are collectively trying to write,
these are the true joys that puncture our darkness
and each one is invariably a consequence of love.