The Bruises She Endured

The Bruises She Endured

After Mary showed me

the bruises she endured

when she thought God had left her

all alone, without a son,

when she thought her world had fallen

into chaos and insanity,

and all things would forever remain

separate and unloved,

after Job showed me the places in his heart

that had resisted the trials God had set before him,

after Rumi showed me the buckets

filled with water shed when Shams

was killed by students in his tribe,

this was when I knew bruises, tears and trials

are all holy.

Mary held her bruises like a mother holds a newborn babe

and listened to the Light

tell her she was nothing more than moon

depending on the sun,

nothing more than emptiness waiting for the holy spirit's love;

Mary stood with Job and Rumi

and could no longer hold to the strings

she had been taking with her all her life.

All things belong to Light and only Light

could determine what was good, complete and holy.

Like the apple on the tree

allowing God to say now you are ripe and you may fall,

Mary learned at last to let

her love for God include the sadness, the despair,

her broken heart and helplessness;

she placed her life upon God's altar

and opened up her heart to receive the Love of Light

with the fullness of surrender of the falling apple
or the moon, with the passion of an unbound kite

giving itself to the wind.

This poem will be included in Elliott Robertson's forthcoming book, Darkness and Light.

A Crumpled Robe

The life I haven't lived yet
sits like a crumpled robe upon a shelf.
It is waiting to be draped over my shoulders.
But that would mean discarding
every crutch I grasp--fears, judgments,
my clouded vision unable to behold.
My shallow breath would be replaced
with an expansive wind.
The local self pinned down by time
would collapse, fall crumpled to the floor,
and joyful sparks would burn my heart
to sacred transformed ash.
It would be the falling of the heart into the One,
the kiss from God accepted, the rest note heard
by the deepest ear, the ray of sunlight
saying, "Yes, I will be sent to earth just as I am."


"The Crumpled Robe" was originally published in Elliott Robertson's book Chaos and Surrender. Chaos and Surrender is available on Lulu.com at a discount and on Amazon.com.

Bach

Bach was the master of the rest notes.
He commanded them like no one else
and they obeyed. He asked each rest
to hold the world,
hold all anguish, pain and joy,
to mix all feelings, still all thoughts
and place the soul into the center of existence
untouched and new.

Bach was the master of all rest notes.
He was like a god spinning planets
around a central axis.
He knew how to spin a world so all threads
united, bowed,
created in the core of silence space for reverence,
just as the angels do each time they pray for grace
or watch souls moving toward God with yearning,
the unstoppable desire
to obey Untouched Existence,
to sit in the center as a virgin, new.

"Bach" is included in the book Chaos and Surrender: Healing Poems for the Soul.
This book is available at Amazon. It is also available at Lulu at a discounted price.

From Shadows into Light

It's the dropping down from shadows into light,
that's what I live for,
much like the actress who has spent an hour
on stage as Medusa
or the actor who has let himself
be eclipsed by Romeo,
much like the one who has become someone foreign,
lived in a garment until the cloth
seemed to be more real than God's river
bringing water from mountaintop to ocean.

After the curtain drops
and thunder fills the house,
after the playwright's world has vanished,
the actor stands before the crowd
and for the first time he is present,
the actor drops down from the shadow into light
and becomes a river flowing from mountaintop to ocean,
a tree in winter without stories,
the emptiness,
the witness,
the divine.

"From Shadows into Light" was originally published in PYM Today, Summer 2011. It will be included in Robertson's next volume of poetry.

Rest Notes

Oak trees shudder at the rest notes,
the place in Bach's B minor mass
where God's face is shown


unclothed by sharps and flats.
Like wind and lightening, these silent notes
fly into the bolted chamber,


into the heart guarded by thorns.
It is the sudden rest,
suspended, that rocks you from your


dream state, fills you with bliss
so bright you become transparent
and forget your name.


From Chaos and Surrender: Healing Poems for the Soul
available from Amazon; also available from Lulu with a 40% discount

Listen to the Crickets Chirp

You've been playing house,
grasping objects, assigning meanings--
no wonder you're fatigued,
lie down and nap.


You've been playing make believe,
reciting a story, clinging to identity,
holding the flow of life at bay--
hush, be still and rest.


Listen to the crickets chirp
about the cherry blossoms:
without a fight
they let the tree burst out.


Hush, be still and listen to your soul
tell tales of a tree
called Yahweh, bursting forth--
uttering your Name and
bursting forth.

From Chaos and Surrender: Healing Poems for the Soul
available at Amazon or at Lulu with a 40% discount