Streaming II

Arising out of silence,
as phrases and phases
growing into movements,
into themes with variations,
that stream into being,
we flow on endless waves
of sound and movement.

If, at any point,
we this streaming is music,
we know that it flows through us,
like our breath and blood,
calling us to be consciously
joined to everything.

Music is our regulator,
our mentor and comforter,
at rest and in motion,
in silence and in sound,
in sickness and health,
flowing from silence
like water from its source;
Music must be our start and finish,
or so I pray
            as memory
            cannot serve me
            on this point.

Music has always been,
and will continue beyond us,
billowing and growing,
and growing beyond growth,
or, at least, beyond—
what growing is,
we may never truly know;
for while human experience
            is bound up in form,
music is outbound:
            form without boundaries.

Music, indeed our regulator,
mentor and comforter,
our rest and motion,
all silence and sound,
sickness and health,
(experience),
flowing from silence
like water from its source,
our start and finish.

Though God must be this Music
—the constant stream, flowing
through all portals of expansion—
You and I make a bridge called Now,
where the past is re-membered,
informing all future possibility.

Regulator,
mentor, comforter,
rest and motion, ocean;
silence and sound, found;
sickness and health, wealth;’
we are flowing from silence
like water from its source—
from were we start to ever onward,
together, we are Music,
in time and out.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 38. We all walk this path

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                38.

We all walk this path,
The blood in our veins dances
As we follow the stars;
Each pattern is a math
Of blind schemes and chances,
Of discovery solely ours.

We seek the still,
Where at the still point
There might be peace
Within which to find will
To withstand all disappoint,
To accept a final cease.

Where have we been?
It is difficult to say;
Perhaps we are the place
Where there is no sin,
Only experience may
Mark our path and face.

We watch one we love
Ascend the final tree;
Sacrifice does not mar
The healing of the Dove,
It is here for all to see,
Being reconciled to the Star.

Freedom and release,
Both time and timeless,
Past and future join now,
Where the only timepiece,
Is being, explicitly ceaseless
—Only truth hangs from the bough.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 29. Since we were talking about words

Note to Readers: “Meditations in Fast Times” is a devotional writing experiment for the Season of Lent. Each day during the season, I am writing a poem as a meditation on, taking as my inspiration and intertextual basis, T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”, as well as incorporating the daily office, current events, and other readings—some the same as those Eliot used while composing his seminal work and others.

                29.

Since we were talking about words, and words inspired us

    To perfect language and clarify understanding,

    To practice communication with using past and future,

Let me review the epic failure of that enterprise

    That we thought would bring us renown.

We spoke in tongues,
but not with the tongues of angels;
full of and with self,
we sought to be known communicants with the Divine,
rather than in community with other people,
and so our words fell flat,
spiraling downward into obscurity,
so lacking they were in music
or meaning

—if the trumpet sounds uncertainly,
how shall we understand the signal?

If we are to spread love,
it must be into the field of our life and action,
even if we never know the result of our labor.

Love of place cannot rank above love of people;
people are the servants of creation;
they are all the gardeners of Eden,
just as you are—this what memory taught me:

To be free, the self must be regularly emptied,

a sign of giving and receiving in equal measure;
emptiness is the sign of a life well spent,
regardless of any past or future claims.


Of all that I ever knew about language,
of all the words and ways,
I’d rather have just five words
that I could speak with compassion and love,
that I could be compassion and love,
that I could truly be,
and be so for everyone.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Shadows and Shades

At the outer edges of awareness,

shades hide in shadows,
silken shades,
peripheral,
yet presently alive,
watching and wondering,
witnessing
the shift of time,
as actions and images flow,
revising truth,
reviving resolve,
releasing moment
from any proviso
that may try to hold
what no longer is
to what may become.

What can be no longer
is not, is not, and can never see

beyond what was
that can never be again,
but in shadow, in shade

and in memory.

Shades hide in shadows 
at the edges of awareness, 
silken shades, 
sight out of light, 
away from sharp pain of focus,
fleeing and fading, 
colorless dissolutions 
that evolve and resolve,
even hope to solve, 
in the offing of ever,
newness and beginnings.


© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Entirely

Dawn depicts reach,
over, around and above,

in ambient expansion,
even in seeming an alteration,
like an invisible map
made entirely for the senses,
that they too might reach
beyond the boundaries
of what is imaginable,
bending the limited into
something more liminal,
that the soul might bask,
released,
into the light of possibility,
perchance to perceive
something of the future
that surrounds us all,
embracing and engaging
creation.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen