PLOUGHING TEXT

A.E. Houseman writes:
“Is my team ploughing,
   That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
   When I was man alive?”

Ay, the horses trample,
   The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
   The land you used to plough.

My friend Deric
Is ploughing text.
    He needs no team
Just eyes to scan
And Hands to Hold…
    The paper ream.

There are no harness Jingles
No trampling Horses
    Just a comfortable chair
And a sharpened mind
To carve and turn…
    The Text that lays there.

I envy Deric:
A man of great achievement
    A few years my elder in Age.
Retired from acting in the World
In denial of his protean Self
    He gives himself fully to the Page.

FROM THE BEGINNING

Quoting
“His friend, Paula D’Arcy”
Richard Rohr writes
“God comes to you
Disguised as your Life”.

OK: point taken.
The pinball dynamics
Of  Mind, Heart and Soul
Are bumped or tilted
By prosaic vicissitudes.

The Chattering Mind
The Questing Heart
And the Ethereal Soul
Are only Ever
Organized into Coherence

By an Awakening
To the deep Unconscious:
Its depths plumbed
By the Profane Accidents
Of our Existence.

Powerless to intercede
On our own behalf
We await
The Intercession
Of Divine Grace.

For only upon provision
Of a ‘Stumbling Stone’
Can we overcome
Our Quotidien preoccupations
And journey into Soulfulness.

Then we fully
Accept, as Rohr writes:
“The Spirit that has been
Hovering over our Chaos
From the Beginning”.

SEMIOTICS

On Signal Street
In Ojai
There is a boutique
Wine shop called
‘Point de Chene’.

Across the way
’El Roblar’
Ojai’s original hotel
Is being revived
As a Luxury Spa Resort.

There exists a Synergy
Of sorts. In French
Or in Colonial Spanish
Both names reference
Oaks.

This valley used to be Replete
With Oak Meadows
Providing nourishment
To its Indigenous People
For over 15,000 years.

Beginning in the mid-nineteenth
Century, Local White Farmers
Fattened their pigs on Acorns.
Then the Meadows were turned
Into Orange Groves

Forever destroying
The Valley floor where Oaks
Grasses, streams
Ponds, swamps and wildlife
Existed in a complex

Negentropic web.
Now mono-cropped with Citrus
‘Oaks’ remains only as
An Insipid Signifier
Of a Lost World.

WHITEFACE

Built of blocks of local sandstone
The White House was lime washed
On completion in 1798
To protect the porous blocks
During extreme frosts.

The Lime filled cracks and fissures
Prevented moisture intrusion
From Damaging the structure
During freezes - but wore off
The smooth surfaces of the stone.

Occasional reapplications
Were necessary to maintain
This protection, but over time
The Mansion’s facades
Presented a honeyed hue.

Two decades after its
Completion it was coated
In a dead white leaded paint
Acquiring its eponymous
Whiteface.

Lost was the organic
Mottling of the stone
That reflected a rich diversity
Of warm light and suggested
A connection to the Land.

During a tumultuous Nineteenth
Century its Whiteface
Served as a telling Metaphor
For the Indian-killing and slave-owner
Presidents who called it Home.

Now Embedded In the Public
Imagination as a Synecdoche for
American Government, the Next
Occupant of the White House
May Paint it Gold

Suitably Elaborating
The Metaphor
Expressed in the Facades
Of The Nation’s
Presidential
Palace.

HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS?

In
The New York War Crimes
Volume 1, Number 3.
A Headline Reads:

AMERICA CELEBRATES
ITS OWN GENOCIDAL
HISTORY AS IT SUPPLIES
THE WEAPONS USED
TO COMMIT GENOCIDE 
IN PALESTINE

Domestic mass-killings
Industrial-scale Incarceration
Police shootings 
Of innocent Blacks

Foreign Wars and
GENOCIDE:
All these Acts of Ritual Celebration
Are an Affirmation of AMERICA.

How else to Efface
Its HISTORY?

THE DEATHLESS WEST

At the beginning of the Century
During Bush II
I applied for Citizenship
So as to become
An American.

Rap Sheet: Born English
But wanting to be an American.
Initially infected 
In 1957 on hearing
Jail House Rock. 

I was not required to Renounce
The Country of my birth.
Sometime previously
Congress had changed the Law
So Rupert Murdoch could 

Remain a Dinkum Aussie.
I thus became
A True-Blue American
While remaining a Brit -
Easing my natal Dysphoria.

America is not a Land 
Of Either/Or. 
More like Both/And.
Of Conspicuous Choices
Of all the same. 

Oreos and Hydrox
Best Foods and Hellmann’s
Both Biden and Trump.
Any color
As long as it’s Black.

Or, what Delmore Schwartz
Wrote about a boy
Named Jeremiah Dickson
Who was 
A True-Blue American:

Refusing to accept alternatives, refusing to believe the choice of between;
Rejecting selection; denying dilemma; electing absolute affirmation: knowing
in his breast
The infinite and the gold
Of the endless frontier, the deathless West.

A Land of No Decisions
And of No Consequences.
A Life without Discernment 
Of Vapidity Everlasting.
Where only Death is Denied. 

EARLY VOTING GUIDE

Its No Use
I’m no Dr Seuss.

But, I do not like
Green Eggs and Ham
Or, Biden and Trump

And will not, will not vote
For either Chump.

I do not like
Green Eggs and Ham
Or, Playing Cowboys and Indians

Like Biden and Bibi
Killing all those Palestinians.

I do not like
Green Eggs and Ham
Or, Endless War.

There are just so many things
That I abhor!

So Must I, Must I
Use my vote
To save a ‘democratic’ State

That serves up all the things
I Really, really Hate?

SISAR NARRATIVE

Somewhere:
Between Tintinnabulation
And Fulmination, the creek
Sounds its way through
The canyon.

Somewhere:
Amongst Alder
California Bay and
Sycamore, the Creek
Finds its riparian path.

Alongside:
A fissured Fire Road runs
Inviting human connection
With the Canyon, Creek and
Its Overstory.

Rising:
Out of this Gorge
Awareness shifts focus-
From its embracing
Participation

In the Creek
Its Cold waters rushing
Over bleached rocks
Its Tangles of Alder
Felled by wind and fire

Its Canopy
Of dappled light -
To the Geomorphic:
The color, form and scent
Of the Chaparral Landscape.

Far:
Its textures Clump
Below the Imperious
Walls of the
Topatopas.

Below:
The ghost tracery
Of sycamores is etched
Against the verdure
Of the canyon’s Depths.

Near:
Smothered by a heavy
Honeyed scent
Ceanothus Blossoms
Pepper the slopes.

Everywhere:
Mind and Body
Caressed
By Objects
Unfolding before them.

BEAUTIFUL SYNCHRONICITY

Since the Thomas Fire
Here in
Ojai
I’ve learnt about
Fire Followers…

The Forbs that Appear
In Abundance after
A Chaparral Fire.
We are now in year
Seven. 

Each year a plant
Seems to take its Turn. 
This year it’s California Everlasting. 
The blossoms of which
Smell like Maple Syrup. 

In 2018 we were
Gobsmacked
By the fabulous
Flowers 
Of Phacelia grandiflora.

Never even seen them
Before the Fire.
By Spring they were everywhere.
Big, papery, pale blue blooms
Hinting of violet. 

Last year
Bush sunflowers
Irrupted on the east meadow.
They are Flowering again 
This year. 

It may have something to do
With wood-ash in the soil
Or lack of a shade canopy
Or it may just be
A Beautiful Synchronicity. 

CREEK

A child plays
By the Creek
Exploring the
Physics
Of the Universe.

Throwing rocks
Into Tumbling Water.
Sound, Splashes of Light
And tiny muscles
Stretched.

A Wild Creek
In a patch of the 
Still Wild, Remaining
Like a stain
On the map

Of America.
Between the
Highways, Hamlets
Towns and Cities
That make the map.

And will make
Their Lives:
Playing by the Creek
An anomaly in their
Education.

To be corrected
Like Coloring
Outside the lines.
Erased by
Future Experience.

Expunged from 
The useful
Re-allocated
To the Imaginary
The Inchoate.

Or, Secreted away
Perhaps, in a Knowing
That the Wild
Is the Keen Edge
Of Reality.

STORM WARNING

For a moment
A generational Gyre
Is evident:
Ages tumbling down
To just Yesterday

It seems.
All is aswirl
In the Turmoil
In which we fall
And Blithely call Life…

Catching glimpses
Of the past
Within the tiny dramas
Of our
Unravelling.

Or, Imagining a Future
In Details that will
Be forgotten
In the Tumult
Of Time

Where the granular
Collapses
Into the impenetrable
Clouds
At the still Center.

But the Storm moves on.
We, but particles at Play
Within it.
Its Purpose Unknown
It’s Path Mysterious.

OAKS

Earth’s core
Not some heavenly beam
Is my foundation.
From this fundament
Energy flows
Through feet firmly planted.

How could I have thought
Beyond wind and clouds
From patches of blue
Some glorious emanation
Arrived
That was God’s Grace…

When all around me stand
Great Oaks
That slough off the years
Through scorching sun
Whipping wind
And pea gravel rain…

Founded
Amidst top soil
Boulders and shale
Attached by Laterals,
And Sinker roots - Secure
In their chosen Place.

Their stillness.
Their commitment to place.
Their rootedness.
Surely a more likely model
Of connection with All
That matters?

HUNGER MOUNTAIN

The eye is a mirror-vessel
Light-years deep
Through which the spatiality
Of the Cosmos looks out
At itself.

In such moments of
Crystalline Lucidity
David Hinton considers 
This phenomenon
As he walks the Mountain. 

His understanding unfolds
Through the Wormhole
Of Archaic Chinese poems
Ink-brushed in the Rhythm
Of the Cosmic dance.

Arranged in line and verse  
Their Graphs speak 
Of Empty Awareness.
The Way of the Ancients:
Of Void and Presence. 

.The Poets’ spare lines
A Reweaving
Of Materiality and Spirituality
Within a Consciousness reflecting
All Heaven and Earth. 

In moonlight, or pale glow 
Of dawn, he reenacts 
This subtle Cosmic purpose
Walking in the Silence
Of his local mountain. 

Hunger Mountain
A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape
David Hinton, Shambhala, 2012.

DANK CAVES

The World is illusion;
Only Brahman is real;
The World is Brahman. 

The Paleolithic:
Ours was a Bright Beginning
In that Age of Existential
Presence.

Those Endless Longueurs 
Of little pleasures and little work.
All Exploded
During the Neolithic.

It was Storytelling
In Dank Caves
That then gave voice
To the 10,000 Things.

The Mute Mysteries of the Cosmos
Replaced 
By Humankind’s
Pallid Constructions of them.

Land forms, flora and fauna
Limned on a Wall -
Consciousness Divorced 
From the Empirical. 

Our swift Release
From the Phenomenal World
Only conditioned on
Eternal Anomie.

The Species as
Cosmic Jetsam:
Now Forever Frantic 
In Pursuit of Purpose.

The World is illusion;
Only Consciousness is real;
The World is Consciousness.

FAULT

I did not ask to be born
In Godalming.
A Wool town
On the Weald
Deep in Darkest
Surrey.

At a Time
Full of Anxious
Hopefulness
Amidst Great Loss.
Almost two years after
The End of WWII.

It was the Sixties
By the time
I Headed out
Hitchhiking across
Europe, Asia and
North America.

After a Decade
In Australia
I found my Way
To California.
I Like it Here
And Plan to Stay.

There is no more
Traveling across
The Earth.
My Body and its Place
Moldering
In Uneasy Repose.

Too much Trammeled
By Hope and Greed
By Opportunity Won
And Lost.
Now a face Faulted
In its Faulted Land.

CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

Read, if you read, read.
Watch, if you watch, watch.
Feel, if you feel, feel
The surpassing immanence
Revealed in the cloud of unknowing.

For it is in its presence
That the deer lies in the meadow
The bird sits on the branch
And the creature stirs within us.
All hearts unaccountably full.

Read, if you read, read
The wisdom of the sages
Immersed in the oneness of everything
Listening from the heart
And speaking from the soul.

Watch, if you watch, watch
Your desires dampened
As your ego is enfolded
Within the sentience
That animates all of Creation.

Feel, if you feel, feel
This cloud of unknowing;
For beneath its shade
The tumult of your thoughts
Slip into the river of forgetting.

Pray, if you pray, pray.
For the Universe is in thrall
To empathic love;
Your Prayer a mote
In its unfathomable constellations.

LOVE

Rocks for Soil
Plants for Water
Air for Wind, Fire for Fuel
And Humans
For Themselves
And Others.

I read Somewhere
That the only way
God could appreciate
The World They created
Was to People it
With Consciousness.

At first blush
Sounds like a Xtian
Notion:
The human-centrism
Of a self-serving
Solipsism.

Then I read (My Life in Books)
It is a matter
Of Empirical fact
That the Cosmos
Keeps company with itself
Through Consciousness.

That the Existential
Condition of the Universe
Is of Loneliness
Of all abiding Desolation:
Pale wash of Moonlight
On Empty Mountains.

Can it be possible
That All that can be Known
Depends on filaments
Of Connection
Colloquially known (On this Planet)
As Love…

Rocks for Soil
Plants for Water
Air for Wind, Fire for Fuel
And Humans
For Themselves
And Others?

STORY

We live in Mutuality:
Embedded in Cycles
Of Creation, Growth
Decay and Death.

Within this widening gyre
Buddhists celebrate a Mind.
Xtians a Body.
Each secure in their Fated Story.

Earthfall:

Jesus, birthed in a barn
Amidst the mire
Of farm animals
In the stench of a stable.

Mindfall:

Siddhatha
A Seeker in the Forest.
Alone. Cerebral.
Seated beneath a Ficus.

We live in Narratives
Of our own making
Entwined in those of others.
Wedded to Story.

Ever Convinced
Of Alternative Iterations
To the Inevitable - Creation
Growth, Decay and Death.

WHITE

Until the last Quarter
Of the 1700’s
Colonial America was
Red, White and Black.

Then the Extirpation
Of the Red Man
Drove the American Revolution
And turned the New Nation White.

The Black Man remained
Under the Whip
The Red Man Dead
Or Driven West.

The Nation Now
Re-enacts
The Supremacy
Of the White Man

In Domestic mass-killings.
In Industrial-scale Incarceration.
In Police shootings
Of innocent Blacks.

In Foreign Wars and
Genocide.
These Acts of Ritual Celebration
An Affirmation of its Triumph. 

HARBOR

To know a place
Is to set aside:
An Intellect
That speaks of History

Geology
Sociology
The Built
And the Botanical;

An eye that inveigles
Thoughts of Beauty
Or of Dross
Of line and mass.

It is to Delve
Deeply into the Spirit
That is the There
There

So that a place
Is understood as ethereal
Neither of surfaces
Nor of the Abyssal;

Not of past Lives
Not of Old things and New
Nor the Lives of the Living
But the Anima of it All.

So that a place
Speaks not of Itself:
It is mute
And Tenebrous

A Fragment
Of Eternity
Harboring our
Fragile Temporality.