Copyright A S Kline 2003
Contents
given
in the light,
years do not count,
inviolable
the creature,
your origin,
say,
say the spell,
you know it.
Say
nature,
heart’s beauty,
heart-heavy
pain
of her going,
say
the given
not made.
You take
her life,
the lives,
look
in those eyes,
see
the mind
behind.
No sanction,
no god,
your choice.
Say the star
listening
to light,
say it.
Say nature,
from the incoming fall
of time
to the slightest
nothing more,
say her.
All one ridge,
one line
of comfort,
one intimate
valley,
one mind
many forms,
generic
warmth
in the great bowl,
dark space,
place alone.
Sacred,
given
in the light,
not made,
inviolable,
say the spell
you know,
say.
hammer of bone
in the air
process.
The rage
of the body
then silence
process.
The flow
as though
it were mine
process.
The listening
the say
the word of the hour
process.
The child now,
it too, I too
nowhere
process.
The sun
the grey
beauty
process.
This real
thought-word
sent onwards
process.
The eye
dark as a leaf
eye-bright
process.
The hollow
built, given, spoken
taken now
process.
The opening,
closing, eaten
sweated name
process.
The rose
of lipped petals
swallowed time
process.
The merciless echo
of every sound
in the spirit
process.
The crystal tree
of immaculate growth
its clusters
process.
The windblown night
the perilous lisp
of touch
process.
All things
grief can see,
all things joy,
process.
The repeated plant
of us
deep in the earth
process.
eliminated like suns.
Nowhere
eternal.
Power of the inflow
echoed, reflected
until when.
Involved fire
speaking in sperm, spasm
the ghost-words
reclaim.
Names shattered
broken like suns.
Spewed out ash
stones
the stair we climb
other lives
interlaced
open our tongues
live in our shadows
drive us
to mountains of fall.
being here
being dead.
Part
learned
part.
Be as
you are
become as.
A star,
the now
one
energy.
Nature and
Form our
refuge.
All past
the dead flare
the said.
The leaf,
leaf
shines.
the throat.
Silence.
For the shadow in time’s courts, the face,
the bright one.
Silence.
For the stone, the stem, the stream,
the branch.
Silence.
For the wound. For the blood of the wound,
for the eye.
Silence.
For the bone, the fall the white
moon-gifts.
Silence.
For you. Silence. For time. Silence.
It burns.
came from the mouth in a gasp of air – feeling
came from your hands – kindness
from the speech of your eye.
Sensitive – the ghetto of names
the tabernacle of thought
it calls together the mind,
names it – empathy.
Knows, it knows,
enters, it enters,
is one, lives there.
Gentle – the wing the light as the dance
dancer, the nurturing arms, the tip
milked the door entered,
calls it, calls it, kindness.
Give, it gives,
share, it shares,
creates, makes there.
True – the hand, the outstretched hand,
the armed, the far one
standing over the stars
honour it, truth.
Holds, it holds.
Defends.
Waits. Is there.
Came from the spirit clear the eye – the true
came from the soul in a breath of pity – feeling
came from the hand, your hands – kindness
came from the hand, soul, spirit – mind.
nothing sang.
There was the Moment,
all time, Energy’s space,
the Self, there were others.
Beyond the real
nothing sang.
Beyond the creature
nothing felt.
There was the sensitive mask,
the nurturing spine, courage.
Beyond the creature
nothing felt.
Beyond the form
nothing shone
there was integrity’s line,
harmony’s detail, luminous.
Beyond the form
nothing shone.
Beyond the living
nothing grew.
There was the leaf, eye,
there was the wing.
Beyond the living,
nothing grew.
in the curve of your hands.
It is.
It is what expresses
the beyond-human in terms
of this place.
It is image, the hole in the lamplight,
a mouth that a mouth occludes,
and discards what does not flow,
pour, from the night
to the white pole
inside you.
It is illumined skin’s
eternal blemish, cherished,
and the core
of the heart
called mind.
Freeing the word.
My mouth opens the petals’
depths like a bee
with the tongue’s stamen
until you accept this speech
a wordless
body.
It is
what shows itself
in the shape of your eyes
in the curve
of your
hands.
reverberate in the bone-speech.
An ear against this
cathedral hears the
angels of process.
Between the wired borders
a frosted no-man’s-land,
between poles an equator.
The burial fields throw up
stone rows clothed in soil,
disinter faces and limbs
all a shadow becoming
hover half-seen.
The cells contain time’s prisoners.
This falls from the sieve.
Near to a scream, the eyes flicker
organs of non-seeing.
The head can hear itself.
Its sources shine over and under
the surface of roofs,
there are seas and moans.
It can hold itself in its hand,
it can stoop and travel.
Night and day cover it.
Under the slow permitted paths
other quick ways shiver,
poured into it, being,
taken from it, itself.
the formless.
Hear the inaudible. There
is nothing to see.
Touch its skin with your eyes
sweet vision, the evanescent.
Taste the pure undemanding.
There is nothing to know.
It will come to you without
asking. It will wait.
You can hold it, or put it down.
It evades your intent.
It’s the flower that may
have no scent at all
where you bury your face.
There is everything to be.
in which it sits.
It is time processing space.
Filled with scythes it winnows
the moon-words of stars.
The dead fields emerge.
Through it the railroads of termini pass
the cuttings and tunnels.
Past becomes Future.
Under it senses tie the net of knots,
cast for invisible fish.
The waters quiver.
It grasps at roots in its own soil, uncovers
iron and gold, bones, ashes and rocks.
They shimmer and fade.
It contains all creatures it fails
to recognise. It feeds
on naked truth, a lance of steel.
In its depths empathy, loyalty, loving
float. Over it hangs violence,
selfishness, others turned into things.
We are no more transient than we ever were,
gods and eternities never were.
We travel towards the bowl of the stars,
the forever opening cup of the flower.
We are no more separate than we ever were.
We are no more human than we ever were.
We move towards the sensitive
loving truth, the half-recognised
not yet clarified ethical form we created.
We are the creatures no less,
when will we make them sacred?
We are nature no less,
when will we make it sacred?
We are empathy, nurturing peace, no less,
when will we make them sacred?
Nothing is dead
that we resurrect
only changed
slowly changed.
How time dies out
through us
and is
regained.
That which was once
considered the god,
or the angel, now
takes place in us.
Here where we build
the temple
deeper
inside.
strike-fire,
out of the heart of the ditch.
Blue constellation.
As though
a fragment of galaxy
caught by the lens,
intensified.
You too are time,
captured far back,
projected here.
Strike-fire,
blue speedwell,
germander,
eternal,
flower of the ditch.
Mind, that split us from the creatures,
returns us again,
the long arc falls back into Nature.
See us in them.
Rooted in earth, as we run for the stars,
no immaculate birth,
just this birth of ours, being.
a sensitive tendril
that clings
to the heart of pity.
This was where we began.
So rich your nurturing,
a flood of creation,
that flows
to the heart of knowing.
This was where we began.
So pure your courage, honesty,
loyalty to love,
that burns
from the heart of being.
This was where we began.
What leapt out at us,
startling integrity,
uniquely become.
Harmony.
Complex, the detail, humming
the relatedness hive,
ah, organised seeing.
It shines.
Luminescence. The deep,
the human, implied,
marvellous mind.
We were.
It shone inside us,
inviolable star.
A circle in which we sat, a ring
of true being.
We were the sacred heart of the creature,
we knew.
Part of the one continuous ocean,
the one sea of fire.
Cascade, thinning down, sieved down
to the given not made.
Till this remained, a whole history
changed into spirit.
Clothes
awkward mind,
used to this womb,
needing its comfort.
The surface worlds defined,
signs and symbols,
the world of denizens,
the world of sheep.
Nakedness in the unclothed world
is nothing special,
dumb flesh un-excites,
the primitive adorns.
And this can be made to flow
or hide or show,
this companion of space,
that covers the mind, time.
Inside a naked creature,
inside mind,
softly, carefully,
revealing its presence.
Not What You Think
that is private.
The saddest, the sweetest songs
are made in joy.
The happiest singing
from intolerable grief.
Writing’s the deceit
mind hides behind.
Just when you thought you were closer,
I found myself receding.
Every confession
magically invents its story.
And our own lives are tales
we tell ourselves.
but from curious asides.
A tree fell wrongly
but exposed the roots.
Forgetting, learning, starting again
to see with a clear eye,
always beginning.
The surprise is only so
if we cling to superstition,
to institutions
we follow, believe in, join.
Our unique solitariness,
that we are self-created,
a gift of nature’s confusion,
is nothing unusual.
When the mind is free
the body is accepted.
When the world is known,
we are ready to start again,
with the sacred given
that should bring us joy,
and the core of our being,
that should being us love.
You are the lake of my stillness.
You are the stone of my remembrance.
You are the shore of my delight.
You are the morning and the evening,
and the sweetness of beginning.
You are the meaning of fulfilment,
You are the mind’s deeper sight.
From this lake-shore, from this silence,
from this solitude of evening,
from remembering and being,
I will raise you to the light.
asking nothing,
not a symbol,
free-floating.
Earth, a dove,
a blue feather.
Moon, a bird,
giving nothing,
white abyss
of the senses.
Moon, a mouth,
a pale singer.
Earth, Moon
wind-flowers
in night’s
last forest.
for its place in your life
for love, gratitude,
in the name of the word,
say to me all of it,
all of the pain that comes
if I speak to you
in the name of the word.
In the time, in the truth,
in the spaces of light
for courage, for pity,
the name of the word.
For the power that flows,
for the moment that dies,
to become the new moment,
the name of the word.
Loving is loving, and kind
is kind, no violence, no
object, but you,
in the name of the word.
For the beauty of light
for its place in your life
for pure empathy’s flight,
in the name of the word.
Secret
the events of your life
don’t become them.
There is a silence of freedom.
There is inviolable mind
in the space of the dark.
Cast a veil, and obscure the root.
You are not what you were,
move on beyond.
Bodies do not define us,
the shell of the earth,
we are the fire.
Move away silent
behind the face of your life.
Secretly become.
No more half-thoughts, ah,
a space of becoming,
so much of the error destroyed,
the trails clear, the air.
And Nature returns, pure
and glowing, sweet and indifferent
a form full of our eyes,
the given not made.
No more half-minds:
into the Moment, the flow,
the Individual place,
the space where Energy passes.
Look for us deep in the core of the creature,
look for us over and under your feet,
look for the true, sensitive, kind
in the nurturing heart of the creature.
Let us have detail and light,
empathy’s deep luminescence,
the movement of process and time,
no more half-life.
Stones,
Flowers, Light
light, your hands
beyond us
climbing
the night,
so I helped you
there
to the source
to the lost
origin
always present
with hands
that see.
In front of our night,
repetitive peace,
the sound, alone,
of the sweep
of a world
blue
into yesterday,
we found
our way,
looked there
with hands,
your hands, stones, flowers, light.
guard, mask, conceal.
Blackness of night-suns,
cold of the star-prison.
By the willows of Helicon,
enter my silence.
Ninth is the hazel,
wisdom in sweetness.
Almond the bitter, dark
tree-core’s messenger.
The flight of the heron,
is the kite’s high quivering.
And the hare in the furrow
slips softly through light.
Smoke-glitter of silence.
Listener to Winds.
we are each other’s life.
It shines, eternity,
void of meaning.
There are the words,
that we climb to,
grope through,
to where is brightness.
Through fern’s green,
air’s fire, the lake’s
dawn-light, clouds,
pain of the wound.
We are each other’s death,
we are each other’s life.
Void of meaning,
it shines, eternity.
I was the stillness of the butterfly’s stone.
Through me the glittering waters ran.
In me the bright star, moon, shone out.
I was the charger of ditches, the mid-field flower,
wheat ear, black ridge, wood of memories.
I was before time, after love, I was
between the leaf and the stone.
I was the soil of desire and design,
glade’s sound, birch-tree’s beauty,
heart’s counter-pulse, earth’s language.
there is nothing to be.
A stammering blue fills with uninhabited
stars: they are downwards, ringing.
You double the note of the flute in the pine,
you go swimming over the stone.
We have woven a fabric of our affection