As Though You Are Not

I served the pomegranate queen
and tried to be her stem,
careful in my green trajectory.
But she taught me to burst,
radiant to the unborn stars,
radiant to blackest loam,
radiant through every shattered
window of my body
until all that remained of 'me'
was the fragrance of no-birth
suffusing the whole garden
like a vanished rose.
Those who need a path
call this perfume
'Catastrophe.'
But those who fall in love
with falling itself
perish into the motherhood
of seeds.
Now Be as though you are not.
Let Not-Being pervade
every pebble with emptiness,
the space between stars,
the hollow in each atom
of the mountain, making
the mountain float on a cloud.
Absence is holy, expanding
Presence everywhere.
Note: I did not say, 'your.'
Comprehending this, the wise
become fools and attain peace
because there is no attainment.
Friend, when you cease striving
even to Be, you will surely
welcome your next breath
as the ocean of grace, a gift
of luminous lethal delight
poured into the grail of your chest
by the wine steward whose gaze,
whose face, cannot
be imagined, only loved.


Artist: Kris Waldherr