Meditations in Fast Times: 13. Getting off the train

                13.

Getting off the train,
thinking to leave behind the clutter of old ways,
our old, shabby thoughts drift across the platform
and flow up the escalator with us,
flowing amid the general mess
of commingled thoughts and emotions,

—really the wants of the rough and tumble masses—
whose sound has gone out into all lands.

Strive as we might to stay in possession,
sometimes rummaging the lost and found
to reclaim half-baked ideas,
the mobile phone dropped yesterday,
or cans for the recycle,
we miss the small presence,
the unprepossessing gift
that arrives, unasked for,
in the face of the flowering weed
growing out of the blighted cracks
of the forgotten and foreclosed factory;
seeking so much beyond our ken,
we fail to see the ordinary
(still very much noteworthy,
in as much as it is woven into the fabric of our being).

Whether we see it or not,
the weed is, in our time or any other,
and exists to be;
that it purifies the air is beside the point,
but for that we should give thanks.

We struggle forward,
making plans,
rehearsing incoherent speeches,
wrestling with emotions,
but Truth interrupts,
does it not?

Truth is neither of passion or dispassion,
but it constantly crosses our path,
manages to derail all our plans
and frequently sends unwanted messengers,
as if to say:
here I am,
pay attention.

Truth is,
Truth is what happens
when we are making other plans;
time and place cease to matter,
acceptance is all in all.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 12. Beginning again

                12.

Beginning again
(beginning from any start or end;
to restart anew)
begins only after sunrise
and only with the willingness
to rise with the sun
into a fresh and unspoiled world,
where every sense,
      every sound,
            every creature,
is a Word that is holy,
and every face is the face of God,
and all are a danceable music together,
held aloft in the spheres
by that most peculiar Pin
of our portal's hinge,
so that we can experience
swinging freedom and flight,
and also safety, at such great height.

Such beginnings only come upon one suddenly,
and only if you believe in a magic
where seeing is believing,
even when appearances are deceiving.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 11. Up from the dark

                11.

Up from the dark,
each of us from our own depths,
as if hearing the cry, “Sleepers, awake!” 

Up into the waking state,
and perhaps for an hour,
some part awake, while the rest sleeps.

We enter the train from the platform,
find the patient no longer here,
the passengers unsettled
within their myopic world of media
their gazes held in their hands,
rocking forward toward indifferent arrivals.

Little can be expected of such a day,
unless one is awakened by Genius,
tazed by the Security Guard,
or assailed by the Transient Upstart;
on such days, not even coffee will serve
to jumpstart us to a higher awareness of Life.

Though the lamps are lit,
they are eclipsed by the false day
with its mechanical nudgings and dronings,
and repetitions of soulless activitiy;
our eyes are not prepared for sight
under the burning gaze of a truer Light.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 10. Down in the dark

                10.

Down in the dark,
down in the dark,
in the dark we have been.

More than watchmen wait for the dawn;
all of us here await the coming Light.

In the morning of the world,
the everlasting Light breaks over us
the light purifies all rivers and oceans,
the light shakes the desert sands,
the light twists the cedars,
and its fire strips the forests bare.

More than watchmen wait for dawn;
all of us here await the coming Light,
so the darkness shall be dark no more,
and the stillness shall dance,
for the Light shall be felt so deeply,
—for Light shall surely purify!—
that we shall be children in the Light,
and shall be Light while we last,
while Light lasts.

This is intersection of timeless moment;
It is here that our time and all time is redeemed.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 9. We've reached beyond the stars

                 9.

We’ve reached beyond the stars,
landed cameras on mars,
yet, with all our science,
struggle with compliance
with the truth: all people are one.

Space painted a frontier to be won,
but home where union seems impossible,
an idea embedded as discord—implausible,
given this rational knowing:
we are greatest when music together, sewing
knitting, inventing solutions, sowing
seeds and making technology that affirms;
a standard by which we come to terms
with the dignity of every living being
is a dream still deferred to the reality of seeing
humanity far from freedom’s joys,
caught up, instead, with material toys.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 8. Wind howls over the sea like a wraith

                 8.

Wind hovers over the sea like a wraith,
the howl and yell
measure time, and tell
the story of our weak and waning faith,
as it slowly crumbles into ruin.

Smoldering wreckage
we have not found,
loss incalculable by pound,
like another of a bygone age,
hijacked and crashed,
other hearts and hopes dashed;
our lives, those lives and these
traded for political gain,
or with revenge to appease
a movement not for peace,
only for blood-soaked increase
within a culture of death.

We stand at the shore,
praying for an answer,
hoping we are wrong, and more,
waiting for a cure for such cancer
—cannot this corruption finally be consumed
so that corruption itself will cease?
—We presume all are doomed,
but what was it all for?

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Meditations in Fast Times: 7. Words are a music that should really be just words

                 7.

Words are a music that should really be just words,
quothe the conflicted scribe.

Could words mean so much,
if there were nothing poetical about them?

Words, naked against the silence,
cannot be so transparent,
or what is the point (still or trembling)?

My heart overflows with the songs
I have learned from birds;
they sing to announce their rights—
all tongues must be skilled pens,
each a sword to defend justice and truth,
pointed and crafted, learned and remembered
—as well as to celebrate the communion of sunlit joys.

Along the way and wave,
words are like the intentions we pave—
for what poetry does not its people save?

— and each step we take
is eased by the music we make;
words must intend, when addressed,
to soothe the savage and his aching breast,
to be medicine that smoothes each crease,
to be the incantation announcing peace.

© 2014 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen