Nothing Matters But This.

[Guest guest]

Life is not a secret.

Speaking in tongues

is a an ecstatic madness

for those you let the genie out of the bottle

without knowing how to be the three questions.

These questions are opening wishes.

Keys in a divine lock. They are -

Who am I?

Who are you?

What is this?

In a dry season

we speak in a dry word,

or speak in an enclosed thought,

as a covering of loves sweet body.

Love never taught you to be this veiled threat.

This threatening fear of yourself.

You hide in this shroud

for protection from a chemical warfare,

that is your own unleashing.

Love never asked you to be like this.

There is a flowering in music, art and poetry.

There is a disrobing in intimate conversation.

There is a nakedness in deep listening.

There is a reception and bestowal in trust.

There is a caged bird in your heart

that longs to be the song on the lips of God,

so why feed it stale seed from your nest-egg

of shameful secrets?

Be open like a breeze seeking its own sound,

in the rush of your enthusiasm to be seemly

in the ear of the world.

Sing a simple song

for the simple minded.

For the simple ones

who have seen around the corner of themselves

and appreciate the view of loves exposure.

Every heart should confess itself

like a penitent for being concealed

in a world of sorrow.

There is nothing more pitiful

than a ripe plum hanging upon a tree

holding back from its falling.

Nothing more wasteful then a tear

dashed from the eye of a heart overflowing.

The nature of water is to run.

The temperament of the sun is to shine.

No one can be a sun drowned in stale water,

and disguised as its shadow.

You must unhood wink yourself,

from the self serving abasement of secrets.

In the basement floor of your buried treasure.

‘Who am I.’ is an answer from your wish tree.

‘Who are you.’ is a recognition.

‘What is this,’ is a statement of your purpose.

Your wish, recognition, and statement

are our purpose.

It is the love you give to yourself.

I do not want to speak of God to you.

I want only to be the speaking of you in God.

I cannot make your poem,

no more than I can make your rose bloom

in the litter box you think to hide your catnaps in.

Yet I am after you as a killer whale

that hunts sealed lips.

I am your holy ghost haunting you

for your secret longings to be known.

Nothing disturbs me in you.

I am the spirit of the buffalo, the white owl,

the rose in your thorn.

You have been hiding the swan of us both,

in the reed bed of remorseful entanglements.

You have been lying in wait, as a lay in you.

Yet I refuse to nibble upon you.

My compassion would eat you as a ravenous lion

bones and all,

but patience has me wait in the stealth of my heart.

as a pride of soft meows, hungering for your surrender.

For you are my poem to. My surrendering in you.

Nothing gets eaten without this sharing.

This ‘I Am.’ is really a call for your soul to be swallowed

in the mouth that speaks these words.

Words not from any ‘me’ you imagine,

but from a ‘you,’ as yet, you cannot imagine.

And so I image you as my open secret,

my poem in me.

I do not need you as a man or a woman,

and yet I would drive this manhood of me

deep into you, to bring you to this meeting of us.

You are not a body I want,

but a body of love, and live within.

I sing you from your dreams,

and dream of my song in you.

Nothing gets created without this union.

Nothing gets juicy without this delving into us.

If I sing of your soul,

I but sing mine into this being of you.

Cow bells are bringing the milking of us home.

It is time to feed the callused hands of farmers.

The horny handed laborers of this field of our love.

To bless the tool makers, and the technicians of doubt.

To be anointed in the love of the clerks, and clerics,

of this worlds administration. To be open.

I am your unwritten poem. Your promise

from a thousand years of day-dreaming and suffering.

I am this shared moment when your heart rejects these

words spoken like seeds on the wind.

This love I bear is no secret.

It is a maidens hand caressing her lover to be hers.

The sharp intake of your breath on a frosty morning.

The warm reunion of yourself in the heat of your longing.

This secret is a poem you seed in existence,

and marry to all things with your love.

I speak in tongues that you alone hear.

I speak as a lover, that you yourself can cling to.

Nothing else matters but this confiding,

this talking in words of fire

into the heart of us.

Nothing else matters.

The day sinks into the sunset, and all is night murmurs

and sleepy passions for our rendezvous with love.

And you feel the handling of this love

as the holder of your heart in mine.

But where have the birds all flown to?

Where have the nests of you and I been

scattered on this wind of our love?

I can impart this secret to you most sincerely.

We are straws in the air making love in separation,

and clinging in desperation

to a silent tune. You would call your secret.

Make a wish my dear ones.

Make it a God wish to be good and simple.

Nothing becomes you more than your nakedness.

Nothing becomes me more but yours.

I am the word in you that is yet not uttered.

I am the fish in your water.

The poem of you in my life.

I write these words from a clear heart.

Drink of this

and be the wine of you.

I am your secret. And I am open.

I love you.

love

eric

Copyright 2002. Eric Ashford.