Ai, my mortality gives me such an ache sometimes.— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
This little face, Chris,
growing and changing under my hands
and my memories talking to me
of people and places seen … and gone.
Is my awakening only to make me more aware
of how mortal and transient we are?
Rose is here … and Lise
and all the books on my shelves.
Moments the authors took serious.
Poppies arising in the fields
and perishing
in a never ending cycle of seasons.
Like the yeast that rises,
or the surf that churns against the rocks,
we are the froth
of the advancing front of life.
Our brief moments
transfixing us for a lifetime
with the fate of passing forms.
But it is no less.
That I’ve watched the lines come
and cross Rose’s face and heart.
That I’ve seen families and wars
come and go.
Felt the ache of love,
and the pain of heartbreak,
and watched my youth pass
and my dreams mellow
against reality.
Our visions clear of the illusions
and,behind, we find ourselves
stark naked
and dressed in animal skins.
And we see our fates written
in the generations rising
and perishing around us.
There is no exit here.
Save, through our hearts.
In the killing fields of life
we wait in the sun for the harvest
and mistake the joy of our growth
for the promise of divinity.
All of it!
Youth, joy, clarity, vision,
mortality, growth, love, pain
and death
merely outline our hearts.
For it is with our hearts
that we must face these things.
For it is with our hearts
that we experience living
and it is through the heart’s
deep belief
in its spiritual seed-ship
that we can pass the gates
of this flaming and remorsless
reality.
Our mortality can be seen
as the profound price
of spiritual realization.
That love and pain
and our passage
from youth to death
is the food of Gods
seeking birth.
So we must love, must risk,
must dream and age
and see ever deeper
through these illusions.
We must witness fairly
and act impeccably
as we travel this road.
We must weather away
against our experiences
and burn for life
against implacable death.
We must love each other
with compassion and fervor
as we melt
in these furnaces of time.
And we must walk tall
in our belief
in our own divinity
straight through every storm,
every distraction, every illusion,
every love and attachment and passion.
Every realization and mood and insanity
straight into our deaths.
For, as Gods seeking birth
we can do no less
until we have loved,
known, experienced it all.
Gallagher
15 July 86
Archive for the ‘Spiritual’ Category
1986-07-15
Tuesday, July 15th, 19861986-11-09
Sunday, November 9th, 1986
every moment, night and day.
crystal, locked in, unrelenting awareness
every breath, every posture, every bite
all one.
all part of the illuminated awareness
that has, as its object,
its own blossoming.
that has as its effect
the figure/ground reversal
within which everything else
appears as illusion;
as dreams which are traps,
as distortions which ensnare.
as consciousness we can be one.
we can unify through achieving
the critical mass
of self-awareness necessary
to self-sustain self-creation
immediate eternal razor edge.
but before
we are fragments of light
lost in dreams dim and gray
with the lights and motors and pumps
of the illusion to sooth us.
and even after we become aware
of the possibility of unity
those dreams wait with
a thousand lifetimes of patience
calling us back to sleep.
Gallagher
9 nov 86
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
1987-01-01
Thursday, January 1st, 1987 I awoke on the subject of biting my fingers
to find that I'd been nibbling them for several hours
since midday when I'd thought, "OK, 1st day of '87
and I haven't bitten them yet."
I smiled at myself; these resolutions and siestas.
Bhagwan's dictum to "watch the thing you want to drop"
came to me and I reflected that I hadn't held the thought,
I hadn't kept watching. Then I wondered "how do you
practice holding thoughts and I thought of meditation.
Meditation is exercise for the mental muscles
to tone them to hold a thought.
Hence the mantras and the koans.
Its the fruit of exercise that gives you the power.
Power to remain awake on as many things
as you have developed mental muscles to hold.
And once you can hold what ever thought you wish,
everything which CAN be changed,
comes within your grasp.
Gallagher
01 Jan 1987
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —