THE WIND HORSES





I built a monastery among the quiet mysteries of high peaks

hoping monks would come, walking sticks in hand, and find repose.

From The Mountain Poems of Hsieh Ling-yun







This is a meditation of sorts. A candle lit at sunset, a remembrance, a beginning.

What brings us to this place but intuition, a seventh sense,

A Seeing, beyond intellect and reason. When a space shuttle fires its rockets

At first there is no upward motion. It hovers in great clouds of smoke,

As though enormous decisions are being made.

Then, strand by invisible strand, the ties with gravity

Are cut, and a great silver arrow arcs into the sky.





There are analogous rites of passage in our lives, times of discipline and trust,

When we hover over what has been safe and familiar,

Above the launching pad, clouded by our fear of the new.

We feel the thunder of engines, see the smoke, but feel immobilized,

Yearning to be free of the past, leaning toward an imagined future,

Some future or other, that we have conjured as our highest good.

Then a sudden surge, and we feel the full force of the universe

Lifting us upward into the light, into a heaven far wider than we had imagined.

We become pure flight, and suddenly, no words or dreaming can capture

The new reality. I feel this breaking free, the power, the speed.

This is what I know: everything is a journey, each indrawn breath, each heartbeat,

Each bold new adventure into a cosmos that holds all possibilities.





When I reach out into the Void, I find no word-forms that can contain

This sense of mystery and sudden grace. Still, it seems important to try.

I am wondering what I can say, ever, that would speak to your soul, here

In this indigo evening. I am reaching for that inner language,

The Language That Lives Beyond Words, in the once upon a time.





I can call in some images, but they will be imperfect. Still, they will

Welcome you into the garden of my imagination, invite you to suspend disbelief

And pretend that we are in a harbor café, telling stories of Artemis and Persephone,

Drinking strong fragrant coffee, honey sweet, or perhaps walking on the breakwater At Rhodes remembering the Seven Wonders of the World. Over there, look,

At where the Colossus guarded the harbor in that far and ancient time.





Here is the paradox: only these words, hieroglyphic as they may be,

Can map and navigate these our heavens, can add substance and form

To the invisible. Words are the stepping stones that bring me,

Step by careful step, to your temple door. Words are a ritual we perform,

Trying this form and that, to see where there is resonance and truth.

There is no formula, no plan, no calculation that can predict

This, our journey into the future. It is an act of trust, or nothing.

Hemingway said: “Play for more than you can afford to lose,

And you will learn the game.” From this point onward

There is no going back, there is only the Path we have chosen,

Or that has chosen us. Who can say? There is only the Path.





We sense the presence of the Goddess, a marine Venus.
Full fathom five, our Mother lies. Those are pearls

That were her eyes. The fishermen throw nets by torchlight,

Here in this enchanted land of our dreaming. This is what I mean:

I cannot tell you anything, anything at all,

Except that it feels important to be here with you and the moon,

Invoking the presence of futures past into this moment.





You are my calm world, here where the water lights gather.





We know there are layers of meaning that create a world beyond words.

I can say that I am feeling my way into the depths, into this soft music

Of evening, the swelling chorus of frogs, the call of night birds.

I can tell you that there are moments when I feel so overwhelmed

With a passion to live my life step by step, risking everything, that

I lose language altogether. That is how it is. It is the Way of Things.

Time and time again, life washes away my words altogether.





I pray for metaphors to anchor me, anchor my small boat

In this vast and unknown sea of enormous possibility.

I am thinking of that pine covered island in Greece,

Hovering on the horizon, an island out of time, timeless,

Where I can float just offshore, in a blue-green dream,

Riding the gentle rhythm of mermaid-blue Aegean waves.





My words, when I can catch my breath, and speak,

are simple prayers, for grace, for courage, for the will

and strength to carry on, whatever is required or needed.

I pray to live with fierce love and unimpeded joy, nothing less.

I pray to be worthy of this, the Holy Journey into Time.





At the top of the highest mountains in Nepal, there are long strings

Of multi-colored flags, streaming out into the wind,

“Wind Horses” they are called, placed there with gratitude

By climbers who made it to the top, wrote their names on stone.

The flags dance with the wind, dance against the snow and sky.

Can I make it to the mountaintop, the temenos, the sacred site,

And what, then, will I discover: myself? And will I find some new world,

And long lost future worlds within worlds? And you, do these prayers

reach you on your own journey into your necessary future?





This is how it is: Tonight, I am here dancing in the wind,

Dancing across time and space like a string of colored flags.

There is nothing else, nothing in the whole world but this dance,

This prayer that flies out into the sky in full consciousness.





The Wind Horses of my imagination are flying, flying in the Light.

The sky, the wind, the moon, the mountain, the bright snow.







Taos, New Mexico

At the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

April, 1999