Poem of the Month

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think… while you are alive.
If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten —
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City

of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,

Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,

it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

-Kabir

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I talk to my inner lover, and I say, why such
rush?
We sense that there is some sort of spirit that loves
birds and animals and the ants–
perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you in
your mother’s womb.
Is it logical you would be walking around entirely
orphaned now?
The truth is you turned away yourself,
and decided to go into the dark alone.
Now you are tangled up in others, and have forgotten
what you once knew,
and that’s why everything you do has some weird
failure in it.

-Kabir

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Once in a while I will come across an unpublished poem – or one will be sent to me – by a talented but unpromoted writer. It is my honor to showcase them to you, especially this poem by Mary Harker.

Affirmation

“If anyone here
knows a reason why
these two should not be wed
let him speak now.”
Of course, at this wedding
these words weren’t spoken.

At this wedding
on our porch above the beach
the words told of a chance meeting,
attraction, loyalty, and love.
They spoke of difficulty
and of gratitude.

I watched the slight caress of fingers
the quick meetings of eyes
the soft interplay of smiles.
Beyond, waves crested, rolled in
to spill themselves across the sand.
Sun parted the clouds.

A man on the beach,
his camera pointed our way
dashed here and there to get pictures.
He had a smile on his face
delighted, I think, by these two
in their matching white jackets.

-Mary Harker

About Mary
I began writing poetry at age 43, received a Master’s Degree in English with an emphasis on poetry from San Diego State at age 53, and now teach a Poetry Workshop for adults 50 and above through OASIS. I was married for 27 years, have 3 children and 8 grandchildren.

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How many miles to Babylon?
Three-score and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, there and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You will get there by candle-light.

-Old English Nursery Rhyme

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All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten’d, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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