Gathering Wool

Anytime, when the wind dies down,
or even when the moon is full,
when music flows from simple sound,
it’s time to gather wool.

Following pools of brighter light,
from one to another and on,
all for the improvement of sight,
and listening for snippets of song,

When flow has turned off-aligned,
people will talk, unraveling day and way;
all is valuable wool, left behind,
knowledge for plucking, as you may.

Life’s bushes, brambles and thickets catch
this knowing, framed in time and set,
just waiting for a mind whose match
is equal in need for it to be met,

Thence to be combed, carded and spun
into threads to be warp/weft woven
into tapestry mantles, to be won
—not bought—by the fittingly behoven.

Opening the senses to signs and sound,
even gooseflesh may be destined to pull;
tuned to low band, treasure may be found
by simply gathering wool.

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Transcriptions

A cacophony of voices rises,

along with the noises of Life;
the shrieks, crashes and throbs
of man, machine and beast—
a polyphony of distractions.

There is no substitute for listening,
even among the best thought partners,
and doubly true that is for the transcriptionist
who must gather a single thread,
from among the knotty ribbons of fire,
that will allow Theseus to quit the labyrinth.

Loudness and speed or lowness and length
are symptomatic of a need for supremacy.

On the one hand, those windows of silence,
that would bring necessary context,
are lost in the wall of loud, louder, loudest.

On the other hand, many words run too fluidly
to make out with any certainty whatsoever.

And so the peace and understanding
of all the world hangs on the ears
of the lone and earnest stenographer,
to accurately record life, libation, living and love
as a single strand of thought, a manifesto.

The wings and winds of distraction
whip at curtains of indecision and disillusion,
not to say disinclination,
to forge something real from delusions,
something that will last beyond a convenient now,
something that will cancel the end game.

But, there comes an end to all our talking—
we must breathe to speak, and so we stop;
all is futile, futile, utterly futile,
even while the earth glows with Life—
we are mostly deaf to Life’s music;
it plays beyond our petty cravings,
beyond our ignoble dominions and wars.

Silence comes only because we must stop,
and welling, as from within an eruption of silence,
a truer answer finds voice and flight,
one that only the transcriber can hear.

The answer is heard by one,
but goes unrecorded;
truth often lies outside
the contractual agreement.

© 2011 by Elisabeth Eliassen

Hearing the Universe Speak

The universe opens itself to

questions and answers.

Listen,
Listen, so that you can hear:
the answers to your questions
are carried on the air;
you need only gather
the many strands,
like flowers,
into a nosegay

—your mind will blossom.

The universe speaks,
singing the answers
to all our questions;
a musical coherence.

Who are the listeners?

They are the ones who
need never ask a question;
they listen to the wind,
the ground, the ocean;
they hear the answers,
and then respond
with appropriate gratitude: 

the silence of knowing.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Hearing

Listen, listen to the sounds of life,
As they roll through your ears
And into your being,
Vibrating as the music of life;
Listen, and be at peace,
Knowing that you are alive within that music,
That your own being is part of life's vibration.

Listen, listen, but don't think too hard;
The ears hear, the mind thinks,
But do not hear within the mind,
Hear within the heart;
Listen, and be at peace,
Knowing that you live by the heart, the heart alone,
And that your heart is the pulse by which life beats.

Listen, listen to life pulse,
Let life sound in your temples,
Life reverberates through your being,
Vibrating as a single tone of unity;
Listen, and be at peace,
Knowing that the next breath you take
Is conscious of all the possibilities of Being.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen