Brave’s New World

                

Brave’s New World

 

The history has past from calling you brother

Today you look beyond the time of the setting rays

And walk much closer to the window of the newest century

 

Not always so - willing to look so forward

There were only the memories of winters behind

The smell of spring in the first thaw

 

Time’s meaning had greater meaning then

You watched the herds for signs of movement

You  listened closer to the wind’s words

 

Voices today all melt together carrying no song

The sun still sets in the western horizon

The wolf once more finds shelter beneath the snow

 

In your face I read the turmoil of worlds

You glance at the window hungry to pass

This gap of era’s linked only by Wikipedia’s portal

 

Your youth still favored in resumes 

The choice of destiny stands impatiently bookmarked

You must let the call die quickly –

 

Or accept communion with the Greater Spirits

 

bkmackenzie

 

The Night’s Wings

The Night’s Wings

I left Waldon Pond and

met you near the wood -

you stood between

the moss and morning

in the shadow of the crest

 

there was a moment

one moment -

where I could sense

more than I could see

my vision altered

by the pure completeness

I felt in loving thee

 

what sense - this sensibility?

worth a mere mortal’s thought -

if timelessness

not passed though

with life’s full measure

 left unsought

 

most travelers find no rest

upon such a road -

without formal bedding

said I  - to the Raven

“Call the night, and

this forest becomes my heaven!” 

 

bkmackenzie

                                                                            

 

The Precious Mirror - Illusion

As before the precious mirror,
The form and reflection gaze on each other.
You are not it,
But it is just you. 

from the Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi
by Tung-shan Liang-chieh (807-869)

Are you the physical body or are you the reflection?  Can one exist without the other? Ch’an Master Sheng-Yen gives his explanation to these and other questions in his book, The Infinite Mirror;

“You cannot know a mirror exists until you see a reflection in it. You cannot see a reflection unless a mirror reflects it. The mirror and the reflection are interdependent. They are not the same; they are not separate. If you truly understand this, then you understand the precious mirror.”

He goes on to conclude that both are one and the same, both reflector and reflection are illusionary. 

As with the  priceless drops of youth that we so readily waste in the passing of our life - when youth’s illusion passes we find ourselves only thirsty for more time.  Time like the mirror’s reflection is illusionary and the now aged can never be separated from their youth.    Understanding and acceptance of the illusion allows transformation of  youth’s priceless gift into the precious gems of wisdom in our later years.  This is true alchemy.   And once the soul enters the portal of the Precious Mirror there is no returning to what has been -as the poem reads, “you are not it, but it is just you.

  

In Writing

 

in writing I cast my heart

very much alone

            in a  void

            in a crevasse

 in a labyrinth with a quill

 

castles all around-

            left naked

 without the two buck toll

 to pay the greedy gatekeeper

 at the entrance to my soul

 

            up going Jacobs ladder

 to scale the Kingdom’s wall

         I read a message in the mortar

 of a prior writers fall -

 

 taking focus on the moment

        I glanced from where I came

                     I saw Jesus in the junk-yard

                       Buddha without shame –

 corruption in the structure

        only magnified the pain – what gain?

 

 ascending upward

  to the underground – what left unfound?

  but a virgin in a breadbox

  recording a world

            with no sound –

 

 she motioned – enter

            the apparition fell away

       leaving a mirror and a mantra

       only without prayer

       and a writer rapt in parchment

 ink just laughing everywhere 

 

                                  bkmackenzie