The Sun That Glows Inside the Cave

I Stare Back at the Robin

A man swims quietly in the lake
in a generous liquid square fenced off from the algae.

Another man waters a bush of red flowers
fenced off from the walkers and their dogs on the path.

Rivulet of birdsong—apparent, yet clandestine,
the family and the hunger, up in the branches.

The soothing jangle of eucalyptus
in the wind, approximates the sound of gentle flame—

I close my eyes and ignore the gnats.
Here we are, deep in the spread-out robes of the Mother,

the hem, the pockets. The small robin, who seems to
look straight at me, sitting so still across the field,

it is a small symbol of God,
and also the blood and feathers of God.

How will we know this?
How will we approach this,

that we are the gifts streaming down,
as well as the sacrifice?

A matter so puzzling, few can accept,
so most stray into the way we seem to

not want to honor matter as holy, worthy.
Some of us even destroy our own bodies.

Or sanction extinction of children’s—children’s!—bodies.
If all could just come in one round instant to quiet,

such as this lake at dusk surrounded by redwoods
where I stare back at the robin across the field.

If all could refuse the mind for once,
listening to then what comes.

Thirty Sailboats

In a cab that is small, warm, stuttering exhaust,
past the baseball field in Montclair where
I once sat against a rough benevolent redwood
to watch my son play better than the other six-year-olds,
his whole body tensing, then relaxing in the outfield.
Now the field is full of geese,
nibbling and resting before their flight in a week or so.

The world this autumn is still so ignorant, so full of falsehood.
Thirty sailboats move today across shockingly blue water,
with food and supplies for camps of starving children.
But the Italian prime minister warns them they’ll die by drone,
her hair shiny and blonde and straight, turn back, she says.

I am just one soul in a body in time
that decided to open up, open just a little
so far. And maybe I will open more,
I pray I do, Mother,
enough to do Your work here.

I will not be afraid of time, or of falsehood.
I will keep changing my color in Your hands.

Pale lilac flowers on muted greens
as the little warm dirty car gets me home.

Dolphins

Until another temporary winner
called “president” emerges,

autumn unfolds ominous in our heads,
or pools around our feet in this good or dull moment.
A new birdcall up the hill is a chunk, percussive.

After we know the final answer to which former baby
will be the distilled savior to one half of the group
and their thought-forms,
here in California will be another winter
with its flowers, like a stretching of faith.

I didn’t tell my children birthmarks
might be evidence of a sudden death,
like the cherry paw on the back of his neck.
In which the spirit, confused,
can’t bite off this new stream and wants

instead to keep breathing the old dream.
The proof of struggle prints on skin.
Kisses from the angels, I repeat,
as I was once told,
when they complain of their own birth stains.

And eyebrows, I remember when they were very young
trying to explain eyebrows,
having no idea, really, only going into
Cavewoman voice—
and something about all that hair leftover from our ancestors.

If humans don’t seem to fit the bill,
after so long a slab on the wheel,
there are always dolphins, intelligent and cute, living out there
in the water, smudged today with pounds of silvery fog.

They could pick up where we left off.
But for now, all I must do is find
the way home quicker from the small self.

Lions

Difficulty sleeping—clenched frame (my carriage),
middle of the night—and that same word, LION, breathed out,
as soon as I woke, too soon for a worthy rest.

Am I the lion?

Pictures of all kinds of eagles in Africa
your stepmother shows us in the morning—both field guide,
and the actual she saw. No one wants to talk about God, but let’s look at lions
on the phone. I must write something the Mother said

about the soul, searching hard for it all your life,
in the notebook I started for my son.
I thought he was numb to violence
in films, but the woman slain in the first scenes of The Fugitive,

made him tremble, he was afraid to go to sleep.
My mistake, not knowing how much to show,
how much to hide. But material life throbs with God
and stifles God, and I think I teach him that. Brave seeds
of light once landed in all of us, I think I teach that, too.

Now, hours into our day, forcing myself to stay awake,
the wind rushes little purple petals around in the air
as we find free parking.

Little Fish

In the morning, in my mind, I return to the samadhi,
cool white marble, more birthing room than tomb.
Feeling so received, like a little fish into the current.

The Mother says—I am here, on the ashram balcony,
But out there, beyond the wall,
the despairing, the dumb, your problems,

that’s all Me, too.
Traces of the old addictions,
approach as breeze, inhabit as brute wind.

But I think they are just stories,
and if I cling to my stories,
I cannot be a vessel for the Mother,

can I?

Surprise Healing

Why the return
to this weepy over-analysis of the past?

Can’t I see, here in this minute,
the dog standing
in a rectangle of buttery fresh light,
and my husband’s playful eyes,
light jade mixed with smoke?

In a few dreams, smoke rises,
either lightly as if from a pot
or a big fist of it from a field.

In one dream my sister’s a new old friend,
finally so strong, muscular from Crossfit,
and I toss her the keys, smiling, saying
I’ll be going deeper into other rooms to heal.

Disrespectful of the Puzzle

It was time consuming,
to make a comb from antlers,
in the time of the Vikings,
we learn at the Viking Museum,

And it is time consuming,
to be down here instead of up there
where I know how we are more real without our bodies.
Down here, absorb the soundless energies

of all the minds bobbing on the square.
An old tattooed woman warbles Celtic ballads
in the middle of a stage beneath the statue
of some swashbuckling man, in Europe always some man,

unless you are a female angel overseeing conquest,
or, like that huge Victoria,
an inflated, frowning queen in white stone,
whom we stood and looked upon after the changing of the guards,
in black bearskin hats you wanted to plunge your fingers into.

Marina calls from California—her dog has died too young,
collapsed in the middle of fetch.

Earlier today in a chocolate shop
we learned Aztecs believed cacao, when poured,
created bubbles within which God lived,
so they would pour out the cacao men killed each other for
from very high, above one’s head.

Marina’s face can change, I see now on the phone screen,
from light as strawberry milk bubbles, playing with my children
to plain with pounding grief. I have no explanation for
what made the creature go, what makes the nearness
disappear like that without warning.

Even to say it’s what God wants,
that a heartbroken person needs the spirit of a husky
who would bark in wild anticipation minutes before
your car even appeared down below on the street,
who would guard your bed every night from dark entities,
or so Marina felt, bark and wake you up
to let you know fissure threatened and you could
call to God then to shake out the room like a picnic blanket.

Even to say a rosy relay race like that, seems too disrespectful of the puzzle.