Ascend to the Light
Part IV: Returning
(Spring 2021)
Contents
1. Easter still
2. Returning
A. The Witches of Madison County
3. Leaving behind
4. Rancher justice
5. Jaded Jaden
6. Justice among the dead
7. The hanging judge
B. Soul in society
8. Our task
9. A set of disturbing questions
10. Arising in good faith
11. Steps in writing a poem
12. Macro beauty / micro beauty
13. What dreams may come
14. Gnosticism in America
15. To an unknown
16. William Frederick
17. Werde wär du bisst
18. America the “woke”
19. The imperial gods
20. Layered psyche
21. On the battlefields
22. There is a stream
23. In an old cemetery
24. Mutuality
25. The love god
26. Loved
27. Silenced in Sheol
1. Easter still
2. Returning
A. The Witches of Madison County
3. Leaving behind
4. Rancher justice
5. Jaded Jaden
6. Justice among the dead
7. The hanging judge
B. Soul in society
8. Our task
9. A set of disturbing questions
10. Arising in good faith
11. Steps in writing a poem
12. Macro beauty / micro beauty
13. What dreams may come
14. Gnosticism in America
15. To an unknown
16. William Frederick
17. Werde wär du bisst
18. America the “woke”
19. The imperial gods
20. Layered psyche
21. On the battlefields
22. There is a stream
23. In an old cemetery
24. Mutuality
25. The love god
26. Loved
27. Silenced in Sheol
1. Easter still
Easter is still today:
Friday after Easter Sunday,
eight days as one.
Tomorrow I return to Great Falls,
Easter Saturday. At last. In time.
This lovely quiet blue evening
my last night in Sheridan.
Easter, Day of Resurrection,
when a select few experienced Christ alive
beginning on the third day (by Jewish reckoning)
after the Romans had crucified Jesus.
Easter, the day of seeing the Risen One,
day of visions, of encounters with the Lord
for a few, later granted to others,
still later for us who first must trust
the Christ who’s seen as Risen
Not with bodily eyes, perhaps,
but with the inner eye of mind,
the heart of hearts, internal spirit,
where God appears or breaks in
when God wills to break in
or not.
2. Returning
1
“As a dog returns to his vomit,
so a fool returns to his folly.”
Is that the mode in which I return
to Great Falls, the windy city on the Missouri?
“One can never return home,” we often hear,
for you and your old home have changed.
You left in the past, and the one who now returns
both is and is not the same.
I think that I’m returning to friends.
Some who had been friends
may well become better friends—but others?
“Too much water flowed under the bridge.”
Who knows? Perhaps I’ll make a new friend
or even two, or oddly three,
or square it off at four or nine or sixteen…
I’ll be content to nourish the ones I have
And perhaps to make a single new friend
whether man or woman is not material
but a friend fitting for me,
for whom I’m suitable as well.
2
Return with realistic expectations
that a few friends and I have drifted apart,
that others were hurt by my leaving them once
and need re-assurance that I’m finally back!
Return with awareness that Great Falls is a city--
noisy, congested, full of busyness, and problems--
so find lonely places to make frequent retreats
quiet, daily retreats with my dogs in solitude.
Return to nourish my faith, and perhaps that of others,
return to prepare myself to enter eternity;
return humbled by the lessons of Sheridan--
my need for solitude and friendship in this passing light.
3
“Return, o Israel, to the LORD your God!”
Shuva! “Turn back to me and live!”
Would a return without returning to God
be worthy of the name “Return?”
Return to ascend to light ever glowing
by the dark light of faith ever burning, burning;
ascend to the light not revealed by these lights,
but made darkly visible to the humility of faith.
Return to “the author and finisher of your faith,”
who “calls you out of darkness
into his marvelous light.” Return
on the calloused knees of humility.
A. The Witches of Madison County
(last experiences of Sheridan, Montana)
3. Leaving behind
There’s always something
to leave behind
as one fares forward,
even as one returns.
Sometimes there is much
to leave behind--
baggage to be jettisoned,
thrown overboard to sail forward.
Memories will linger
at least for a while
perhaps until the waves of death
wash over me.
A few were truly witches
or played the part well.
A few warlocks, perhaps,
who still bewitched.
The ugliest witch encountered
has a sweet name masking
what she truly is--
sour deadly poison.
Her ugly soul is more twisted
more perverse
than that of anyone
I’ve been misfortuned to meet.
Of her words and deeds
we shall not speak.
Evil must be shunned
and not empowered.
Bewitching poison seeps itself
into the psyche of another.
See it for what it is
and spit the evil out.
The baggage to be left behind
is the evil one encountered.
Here I write a few words on water
so that they’ll flow away.
4. Rancher justice
I’ve known this rancher over many years;
only slowly did I come to see
cold unmoving darkness in his heart.
What human being does not carry
shadows of darkness in his heart?
Some hide their shadows well.
This one loves to be loved, to be popular,
a Big Man with a friendly broad smile
cowboy hat, jeans, and boots
Who enjoys performing in front of crowds
singing and playing his guitar
being liked and admired by everyone.
Well does he hide the darkness within
cruelty lurking deep in the heart
of one seeming to be what he’s not.
It was a sub-zero dark day in December
the day I saw behind the mask.
My old black Lab Moses and young Elijah
Not permitted inside, waited in the car
as I sat in the rancher’s warm living room
listening to his selected tales.
He began to boast of his aim
with a rifle: he could shoot and kill
an animal at will. And he killed many.
“One day a dog crossed onto my ranch
running on the open range.
I grabbed my rifle and with one shot
I dropped that dog to the ground.
It was legal, ‘cause he was on my ranch.
That black Lab didn’t have a chance--
I shot him in the head
and that dog dropped down dead
dead on my ranch.”
5. Jaded Jaden
The world has its share of fools and idiots,
of corrupted and depraved men and women,
of petty bureaucrats who play the tyrant,
of tyrannical men and women not worth knowing.
Among the witches of Madison County, Montana,
is one jaded Jaden, who works for a hanging judge--
for one who would order hangings if she could.
As so often, like attracts like, even among the dead.
Jaded Jaden, sharper tongued than a rattlesnake,
no doubt prides herself on her supposèd beauty
utterly blind to the deformity of her soul.
How many innocent lives will she infect?
When I asked, probably naively, if she were related
to the highest elected politician in the county,
Immediately she accused me of insulting her,
of insinuating that she was somehow corrupt.
In actuality, that thought was not yet conscious,
but in this case, as in so many others,
we so often accuse ourselves by accusing others.
“If the shoe fits, Witch, wear it,” I could have said
But did not, for she had already condemned herself.
As my friend reported who sat with me for several hours
during Judge Fellen’s hearing of local cases,
“that witch kept staring at us with an evil eye,
and I just just staring right back at her.”
I saw her mal de ojo and marveled at her self-importance,
finding a niche where she could play god’s lieutenant
and be a witch to those whom she hated.
Jaded Jaden is a suspicious woman,
whose soul has shrunk under the weight of ill-will,
already warped by her lack of human kindness,
slowly morphing into a female Dorian Gray:
for fleeting beauty and power, she sold her soul.
6. Justice among the dead
Some matters in life are inherently so ugly and disturbing that they scarcely form the stuff of poetry or music, unless one wishes to imitate the ugliness in words or sounds, and I do not wish to do so. Hence, rather than attempt a poem about utterly non-poetic injustice, I offer these words in a straight-forward form. Names may have been changed to avoid law suits. Wicked human beings are highly dangerous to life and mental wealth.
Let’s say this took place in a town called Brothel, Montana, in the county of Monrovia, in an unspecified year, at the mercy of one Judge Fellen. Let the reader understand.
We begin with the heart of the matter. I have been in many cemeteries, and they are usually peaceful. I have been in a court of justice in ranch country in Montana, and it was a place of mental brutality, injustice, overweening pride, and the power of big money ranchers to do as they please with the relatively dispossessed of the earth.
Keep this image in mind of life in Monrovia, County, where big money ranchers have their sway: they march their cattle on the paved highway and right through the downtown of one of the largest towns in the county, and never stop to clean up their excrement. The town is left filthy because some rancher moved his cattle through the center of town—and I heard no one comment on the disgrace. It’s accepted in ranch country. At the height of the Covid pandemic, I had to step through mounds of cattle feces to get into the grocery store. I asked several people, “How do they get away with leaving all of this steer shit on our main street?” “This is ranch country, they do as they want to. It’s just done that way.” Everyone with whom I spoke accepted the mounds of cattle droppings on the town’s paved street. This is an image of life in America, where the wealthy and powerful do as they wish, and others are left to live with the dirty and smelly consequences.
Now, here’s a glimpse of what transpires in Judge Fellen’s court in Brothel, in the county courthouse in ranch country:
“How do you plead?” Judge Fellen asked the elderly man.
“Not guilty, your honor.”
“To be tried before a judge or a jury?”
“Before a jury, your honor.”
The judge turned to the county attorney present and asked if that could be done in the case of violating a county ordinance. “Yes, your honor,” replied the lawyer.
The judge then said to the accused, “Ok, if you go to trial and lose, I can euthanize your dogs.”
The elderly man’s voice quivered. “What if I plead guilty? Would they be killed?”
“I could euthanize them then, but there’s a smaller chance of doing so.”
“Then I plead guilty, your honor. Now may I say something?”
“What?” She snapped.
“When I walk my dogs in the cemetery, I clean up after them, your honor, using poop bags.”
“Did they urinate in the cemetery?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Do you clean up their urine?”
“No, your honor.”
“Then you have allowed your dogs to be a public nuisance.”
“May I say something, your honor?”
“No. I’ve heard too much from you already. You are making me angry. You are fined $250. Now get out.”’
Then she says as an aside to those present, “I enjoy scaring people.”
7. The hanging judge
The days of Virginia City hangings are past,
are they not? Or are they?
Not with rope in a tree and a stretched neck,
but with ropes of injustice she hangs them high--
the hanging judge who stretches the truth.
“Is it really a crime, your Honor, that dogs urinate
and leave behind fluid that was not cleaned up?
Is it a crime, Judge, to walk dogs in a cemetery
rarely visited by anyone else, for the dead
fear walking among their fellow dead,
reminders of what awaits them?”
In reality, one dare not question this judge,
for heavily she wields power over the powerless,
over those justly or unjustly accused,
waiting for her verdict, her inner-worldly judgment.
In the case of the urinating dogs
Judge Fellen does the bidding of a junior sheriff,
who willingly did the bidding of a senior witch
whose coven crops up among fields of potatoes
and mounds and mounds of cow manure.
The witches of Madison County have worked together
hidden in darkness, unseen by others.
They do their evil under cover of good
or at least hiding behind their judicious roles
as leaders of mad and madding Madison County.
The judge’s final words still ring in my mind,
“I enjoy scaring people.”
To this I say with relief and a Billy Budd smile,
“Farewell, old Rights of Man!”’
And farewell to the witches in britches
And witches in black robes in Madison County.
B. Soul in society
8. Our task
What a struggle to live happily in America now,
not to be discouraged, embittered, disgusted
by so much seen, experienced, and read about.
Here, the most base and noisiest forces dominate.
What a task one has to rise above the sewage,
to overlook so much that one encounters
to find a peaceful center in a dissolving world
where many promise peace by smashing traditions.
America’s fate is not as singular as we may believe;
in a sense, it is the way of all flesh and all being-thing
for all that comes into this world must perish
and corruption in America has long been intensifying.
Ours is not so unlike the Hellenistic Age
dominated by power-seeking ecumenic empires
offering millions virtually nothing of lasting worth
and leaving psyches homeless in a turbulent world.
As Stoics found peace by apátheia, equanimity of mind
whether living in wealth, poverty, or imprisoned,
the Apostle Paul found peace in communing with Christ
even as “the schēma of this kosmos is passing away.”
To find order in psyche and kosmos in an age of disorder
to find eudaimonía within disparate psychic forces
to seek and speak truth in a world of deceit:
these are our present pressing tasks.
9. A set of disturbing questions
As a Benedictine monk outside a monastery,
as a priest no longer celebrating eucharist,
as a Catholic not attending liturgies,
as a disciple of Christ devoid of community,
attachment to “religion” has grown tenuous at best.
Why do I avoid contact with the churches
and in particular with the Catholic Church?
Like hundreds of millions in the world today
I stand apart from all “organized religions.”
Why? Why do I not return?
Return to what? That’s an apt question.
To a monastic community that neither wants me
nor where I wish to reside until death?
To the external practices of Catholic priestly or lay life
given what I have seen and experienced?
Why be active in a Church I no longer respect
as it wallows in political ideologies
dabbles in Gnosticized beliefs and practices?
Why pretend to share faith with men and women
with whom I have fundamental disagreements?
For on the one hand, the Church has been penetrated
by Gnosticism in the form of Marxism and “Progressivism.”
On the other hand, many in the pews are fundamentalists
who take too literally and much too unthinkingly
what they were taught since early childhood.
Given what I think and feel about life in the churches
what am I to do?
That relevant question keeps arising.
Presently, I do not want to be involved in churchianity
as a priest, as a monk, or as a lay person.
I leave open the possibility of a change of heart--
That sooner or later I will long for communion
desire to return to Catholic practices.
Unless and until that change of heart occurs
I stand apart, watching and waiting:
“They also serve who only stand and wait.”
There is a time for involvement
and a time for disengagement.
There is a time to come together as disciples
and a time to sit apart in solitude
like the great prophet Jeremiah.
What shall I do in the interim, waiting?
“I shall arise and go to my father.”
I will do what I can to seek God in truth
and in the peace of soul-aloneness
far removed from crowds, rituals
and deadening routines.
10. Arising in good faith
If I suddenly gathered with crowds for Mass
I would not be doing so, could not do so
In good faith, with a clean and peaceful conscience:
the action would be contrary to what I think.
What good is an external, physical return
without a corresponding internal-spiritual return?
What good is any external religious practice
without a corresponding transformation of the heart?
Now is the time to prepare to return
not necessarily to the externals of faith
but to internal communion of one with God.
Now is the time for genuine renewal--
For healing, cleansing, a renewal of the mind:
“Do not be conformed to this age
but be transformed by the renewing of the mind
that you may discern what is the will of God--
what is good and acceptable and complete.”
Simply stated: one must return internally
before attempting to return externally.
How is the mind to be transformed?
Not by breath or bread alone, “but by my spirit,
says the LORD.”
By God alone does psyche arise to God--
an image returning to the original.
The human partner in the communing dance
must humble itself, opening itself up,
and become “unfeignèdly thankful.”
“‘You must sit down,’ says Love,
`and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.”
11. Steps in writing a poem
How another writes or why
I do not know, nor is it
my present concern.
Now my interest is piqued
by why and how I write.
It begins with a single--
with one alone. A single what?
With one single simple insight,
one pressing question, one teasing memory,
one experience, one single moment’s “seeing.”
An impulse, some one thing
unexpectedly erupts, breaking
into consciousness:
A single note or phrase, then a theme,
Then some accompanying harmonies.
Mind works on the single,
developing it, exploring it,
examining it questioningly
as words, phrases, sentences
emerge into thinking mind.
Then I scribble them down
or begin to type on the computer
changing formulations as I write,
but steadfastly pressing on towards
an end more sensed than seen.
This thought world, this little poem
takes on a life of its own;
it does not quite “write itself,”
but must cooperate in the writing process
taking flesh from mind and hands.
These are the first two steps:
the arising of the single,
then the verbal development
both in thinking mind
and in fluid words on paper.
The third step in the process
is to let whatever is written go.
Set the little world aside--
whether loved or unloved does not matter--
and consciously turn the mind away.
Perhaps return later to what had been written
as a mother bird checking the nest
examining the chick
regurgitating a few worms
and above all, observing.
Changes may suggest themselves--
deemed to be improvements
(whether truly or not, one wonders).
Yet again I must fly away leaving
the written words to fledge and flow:
“Ihr wart ins Wasser eingeschrieben;
So fließt denn auch mit ihm davon.”
12. Macro Beauty / Micro Beauty
Seeing planets and stars at night
tiny lights within a fathomless abyss of darkness
you shudder with a chill of awe
at beauty beyond the reach of mind or speech.
The macro beauty of sea and sky
of starry expanse transcending us
of vast plains stretching out to the limits of sight
contrasts with the finitudes of daily experiences.
A yellow rose bush draws your attention
then a single blossom arrests you.
In that one single glimpse of beauty
limited and now frozen in time’s passing
your breath slows down
your heart seems to cease
and you are suddenly not there
your mind transported into a vast sea
of Beauty unbounded and never-ending.
You and the rose are one and none
in the fathomless sea of Beauty’s infinitude.
13. What dreams may come
c
Night after night, or when taking a nap,
recurring thoughts disturb my dreams
that someone whom I loved has died--
my mother or father, though both died years ago,
or that someone I love is about to die;
Often I dream that Moses is dying
or that I just found him dead
with no heart beat, no breath--
sorrow overwhelming me
preventing restful or deep sleep.
In other dreams, I’m the one dying
or I see myself in a funeral parlor
laid out lifeless and cold.
Dreams of my approaching death--
inescapable, proximate, final.
Of late in waking hours
I think of death frequently
and am much distressed
for the care of my dogs
if they should survive me.
What should I do to prepare for death?
Surely I must draw up a will
and I must provide a home for Elijah
who may well outlive me.
As for my soul, I’ve much work to do.
It is not that death is proud, or evil,
but that death is inexorably final
from the perspective of time:
it ends abruptly, one’s brief time of trial,
without do-over, recess, or extension.
No matter when death comes
it is sudden, a slamming of an iron door;
whatever was alive appears dead and gone,
leaving behind a lifeless corpse
surrounded by shocked and saddened hearts.
Do I dare to go to sleep?
Yes, I must rest to live.
Fears and cares may torment me
as swarming yellow-jackets
leaving no part of me in peace.
***
A response to myself
No Moses and no Elijah to tend?
No poem to write, no thoughts to amend?
No truth to seek to know?
No friend to share with lovingly?
Nothing to do but to die?
Suppose you’ve died already?
Suppose what now you think is life
is merely a construct of the mind?
Are you alive now, or are you dead?
“Who knows if to be alive is to be dead?…”
I grow sleepy and wonder
what dreams may come
tonight or for all eternity
as I drift away, slip away
unconscious of who or what I am.
14. Gnosticism in America
America is no stranger to Gnosticism.
In one form or another, it has been in us
and with us since the earliest days
of European settlements on this continent.
A massive dose of Gnosticism
was injected with the Puritans
of Massachusetts Bay, and from there
spread out over the land.
Foremost examples are the utopian dreams
and experiments, radical abolitionism,
but most noteworthy and influential
of all: self-described “Transcendentalism.”
Millennialists both religious and anti-theistic
dabbled in Gnostic experiences,
in dreams of transforming reality
into a “Kingdom of God on earth,”
or into one of its secular equivalents--
a classless society, a world without wars,
a democracy to transform the world
even when fighting a “war to end all wars.”
The Gnostic possesses certainty,
absolute iron-clad knowledge by which
s/he plans magically to “change the world,”
a kind of alchemy on a grand scale.
The Gnostic knows he is “saved,”
or that he is “enlightened,” a “scientist”
who can lead America and the world
into some imagined “promised land,”
some earthly paradise, a “new age,”
or a “new order of the ages,”
liberating humanity from itself
and its limitations: even ignorance and death.
What knowers are these present “woke” folks
who think they know the secrets of America
founded to be a “racist” and “white supremacist” society
built on the backs of enslaved black labor.
To be told truly, the history of America
must include analysis of Gnosticism in America.
Who has written such a study?
If this history has not been written,
why not? Who would write it?
15. To an unknown
To one I do not know
who may not exist
except as a figment--
some fig leaf of my imagination:
If we sat close to you, for example,
I may look into your eyes and wonder
if you are presenting yourself in speech,
as truthfully as you can.
If I saw suffering deep within you,
I may wish to touch your hand
to help console you,
but not to make you my own.
In your heart of hearts, my friend,
are you happy in your essential aloneness?
Do you feel loneliness in yourself at times,
But find peace in God and in work?
Like me, do you seek to avoid wallowing
in self, and surely not in loneliness?
For loneliness is the self-made cocoon
of a self-protecting soul.
Could you dare to share your heart
and say in truth, “I love you?”
Can you desire human closeness
without seeking physical union?
“I find the thought of physical closeness
both appealing and appalling--
attractive and repulsive at once--
secure aloneness is the safer, saner course.
Do I dare to dabble in divine madness
at seventy or ever again?
Cannot one love intensely
without physical union?
How I both want and do not want
physical closeness with anyone.
How guarded is my heart;
how lonely is my soul.”
The way forward is through love,
freed from undue attachment,
freed from the desire to use,
open to the other’s inner world.
16. William Frederick
Ninety-five
walking without limping
body erect, not stooped
full head of still-graying hair
no major illnesses
compos mentis
sharp intellect
distinct, intelligent speech
not a single complaint
quiet-spoken
no visible anger or depression
pleasant and kind.
Aged ninety-five
a recent widower
coming from Nebraska to Montana
living with his son and wife
retired investigative CPA
served as a Navy corpsman
with Marines in World War II
father of one, a physician
with grand-children
gentle blue eyes
smooth, clean-shaven face
gentlemanly.
17. Werde wär du bisst
I’m becoming the corpse I always was
or have always been becoming
from before consciousness began to arise
as awareness of sensations
until all awareness ceases.
Not an animated corpse
but a living, self-moving body
sensing, wondering, seeking
questioning, loving, enjoying,
knowing within unknowing.
A part becoming a part
of a comprehending whole
both known and unknown
alive and enlivened
to an end you do not know.
18. America the “woke”
Dreaming we were a democracy
we woke up and became totalitarian
an overreaching ecumenical empire
dominated by Gnostic dreamers
pretending they are “woke.”
Somewhere in the fog or haze
I fell into a state of aporía
down into a world of perplexity
in which “I don’t know”
comes readily to mind.
The mass obsession with “race”
reverberations of Nazi Germany
with their “science” of phrenology
to determine who was safely “Aryan”
and who were demonically “Semite.”
What produced this Gnostic-woke regime?
Excessive loves of fame, wealth, power?
The greedy drive to dominate
to “transform the world,” transmogrifying
a victim society into their nightmare “vision.”
America, you murder the infants
in your womb, and call it
liberation; you poison and kill the minds
of your young and immaturing
and call it education
all while loudly declaring
that we’re becoming a free society
a democracy, government
of the people, by the people
for the people--
at least for our rulers
the dominators of our lives and minds.
The über-rich grow in wealth and power
and we deplorable underlings
serve at the pleasure of our elites.
“How did this happen so suddenly?”
Sleeping? It was all foreshadowed
in the Marxist invasion of academia
and in the drug-dreaming 1960’s.
Did you miss the Gnostic revolution?
“Make America great again.”
A clever slogan, an empty goal
a nebulous chimera.
A closed prison world or mad destruction
frightening and increasingly likely.
19. The imperial gods
Contemporary Gnostics construct their god:
an organized ideological party to get and keep power,
the cult of self to dominate without restriction,
an ever-expanding vortex of controlling powers
in the form of the centralized Idol State
with its voracious and imperious bureaucracies,
its injudicious court system to punish enemies,
extermination camps for the “unwanted,”
instruments of mind control in the hideous hydra
of education, mass media, entertainment, diversions.
The imperial god of Communist China
does not differ essentially from the imperial god
of the United States of America.
Each exists to monopolize power
and to bring about its Gnostic-ideological dreams
within and without territorial boundaries.
The only limit to the power of the idol State
comes from uncontrollable necessities of nature
and from countervailing imperial gods--
China, America, the European Union, Russia…
Those who seek power within the bellies
of the bloated, insatiable State gods
have sold their souls and interior freedom
to their overwhelming lust for power
to realize their imagined utopian schemes
20. Layered psyche
What was, is;
what will be, is not.
The future has no real existence,
does not partake in being;
what has been both formed
and lives in consciousness.
Presently I am seventy
but am also a little boy
even an infant, a young man;
and all that I have ever been
formed who and what I am now,
still living in the psyche
and can be summoned up
drawn into the light of consciousness
yet again and again.
What I was, I am yet--
and all that I was
and have ever been, I still am.
Does all that I have been necessarily
live in my concrete consciousness?
or need it be brought back
into present awareness
right now to live again
in the eternal noon of the conscious mind?
A sound, a thought, a single smell
may suddenly awaken the sleeper
as heretofore unremembered layers of the past
now take form, return to life again
in the presence that is mind
in one particular consciousness.
In dreams fragments of the past
suddenly return to a kind of life
as unwilled and partial remembering,
a blending of wishes, imaginings,
fears, desires, particular memories
become alive now in yet a new form.
Now I am remembering
sitting in school, second grade class
winter of ’59 in York Harbor, Maine,
daylight streaming into the lit room
and I heard about, read, saw, and touched
the new Lincoln penny.
I am fascinated by the change
seen and touched on the penny:
the boxy building etched with its strong facade,
rather than by the man’s familiar chiseled face;
the bright shiny copper color
warmly appealing to me
both then and now, perhaps now
because it appealed then--
that concrete experience living again
in a right-now act of remembering
in present-forming consciousness
giving a kind of reality to what had become
unremembered as if dead and gone.
What was real can and may live again
being re-enlivened by conscious mind.
The re-enlivening of all or some that was
in mind by mind is one meaning
one aspect of immortality.
What has been may be again
taking form afresh in consciousness
in the pellucid luminosity
that is reality, active, alive
present in the presence that is:
consciousness in-forming being.
***
If what has been experienced
can and does abide in psyche
and can be raised up in consciousness,
does not all live forever in
that ever-present consciousness encompassing
each and all that has ever been in time?
“To God all are alive.”
“He is not the god of the dead
but of the living.”
In divine consciousness alone is life--
Zoé aionios,
true life, eternal life.
What is not in divine consciousness
is not.
What is in the consciousness of God
is forever now
and cannot not be.
“Because I live you also live."
21. On the battlefields
I have walked the battlefields of Antietam
and of Gettysburg,
and read accounts of death-dealing battles
as I walked the blooded fields disturbed in solitude--
the Dunker church, cornfield, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge
on well preserved Antietam, near the creek and the town of Sharpsburg;
the Devil’s Den, Round Top, Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill,
and so many monuments and statues among the watchful trees
and the famous giant map with detailed accounts in Gettysburg--
on hot and muggy summer mornings
and early autumn afternoons
in the memorial cemeteries
reading the name on grave stones
of so many young, mostly very young men,
tears rolling down my cheeks
but I did not bleed.
“Do you forget how I bled?
Only after lying beneath the blazing sun
for interminable days and anguished nights
was my bullet-ravished body
buried in Sharpsburg.
Do you not remember?"
22. There is a stream
There is a stream that flows
along steep and wooded banks
and far upstream
away from sight or memory
may be a dam of earthenware
that may be slowly breaking apart
for the stream is rising
as unusual shapes float by
the water becoming muddier
obscuring the creek bed
I stand staring at the stream
fixed and nearly paralyzed
not knowing what or why
but seeing suddenly
utterly unexpectedly
some single image of a memory
or fragment of imagination
not willfully summoned up
and not lingering
but burning into consciousness
arising with the stream
and quickly passing on
leaving me wondering
what and why
when I was not there--
or was I?
Now I can recall the image
without the first-born fresh intensity
and wonder at the curled silver hair
and at the left hand smoothly sliding
into the tight-fitting tan leather glove.
They belonged to the same person
I strongly sensed, interiorly knew
someone known unknown
but with whom I have felt
a strange and inexplicable bond.
And the stream still flows on.
23. In an old cemetery
Winds wearied of blowing
across the graves and tombstones
through the lilac bushes
and old maple trees.
In the east the sun pierced
the remaining coolness of the night.
Out of the graves arise sounds
dense sounds, tragic sounds,
the strains of the final movement
of Mahler’s ninth overwhelm the earth
promising the end of life
and the triumph of withering death
disfigured cemetery
never completed, never ordered
not empty of meaning or purpose
but pale in meaning, desultory in purpose
shadows barely darker than the light
striking the weathering gravestones
names of those who died before
they ever truly lived
folded together in disorder
somewhere neither in time nor out of time
here but no longer here
nor there or anywhere definite
as the remains wither away underground
unseen unseeable unrecognizable
devoid of any form they had in life
devoid of any coherent meaning
silent and still still
becoming what they always never were
24. Mutuality
Tired from a lack of sleep
after two feelingful hours
as mind was kept awake
by the unaccustomed sense
of mutuality
my being penetrating yours
your being penetrating mine
made both possible and actual
as two souls surrender lovingly
to one another in God
Not by body touching body
but mind flowing into mind
as two disclosed unclothed
themselves to one another
freely and in truth.
Gently you entered in
by words dwelling welling
in your long land-locked heart
now reaching through time and space
into the fertile soil of my soul.
Gently I entered into you
by words freely flowing
from hidden recesses of a heart
long seeking but not attaining
mutual penetration until now.
25. The love god
By the awakened love god
he entered in--
into the opened soul
of one he loves
lying receptively before him
each one yielding to the other
in unfeigned mutuality,
two conjoined as one
in acts of self-surrender
of willing self-giving.
They had been in a restaurant
down by the dock on the tidal river
hands touching outstretched hands
eyes meeting, smiles forming
not attending to the cooling food.
Presumably unseen by others
one reached beneath the table
and felt a leg, the hand climbing
upward slowly, noiselessly
possibly not seen, but warmly felt.
No longer restraining themselves
they hurried from the restaurant
and found their way to a motel.
They had shared thoughts and feelings
for weeks or for eternity
and now they present themselves
as they are unhiddenly
each one giving and receiving
all they have to give and are
the love god rejoicing.
26. Loved
Leaving the world knowing you were loved
I was loved, truly loved
by men and women of good character
and most kind generous hearts.
A few of their names come to mind
never to be forgotten
deeply and sweetly cherished
for who they are forever in God
Sara, that most beautiful woman
overflowing with such goodness
loving me even me
until I rode off to the Midwest.
Pat, Air Force Major, married with children
most gentle and kind father imaginable
who loved me as I am
asking nothing in return.
Judy, wounded soul yet giving
of herself in every way I’d receive
waiting patiently for me
waiting perhaps still waiting.
Daniel, the monk-priest, man of God
manly and strong in body and soul
rock solid character who endured
so much from me unflinchingly.
Before them all, my parents
sister and brother survivors
of so much strain and stress
sharing of good and bad alike.
You and you whom I have loved
and love not well but with intensity
sometimes unfocused passion
but mindful of the Lover’s art.
On my deathbed, whose name
will come so naturally to my lips
as I pass from light into dark eternal light
and disappear from mortal sight?
Rummy, Zoe, Moses, Elijah?
Or you, who came to me
when still a very young boy
as Jesus, even Jesus?
27. Silenced in Sheol
“Arise, and get thee forth and seek
A friendship for the years to come.”
—Tennyson, “In Memoriam”
Friends I have had and cherished
friends I have and seek to love.
In God’s time and way yet another
friend may ascend into my stark heart.
I will seek with a quieted soul in solitude
still waiting for the moment, the kairos,
not of my making but more of the Lord’s--
whether in time or in eternity.
Presently my soul is silenced in Sheol
perhaps for my faults and failures
perhaps to purify a mortal’s mind
busy about so many too many things.
Here in Sheol I await God’s undisclosed time
remaining inactive in outward rituals
as I return and re-learn to seek in solitude
that which draws me ever on, hinan.
What human beings name as God alone
can satisfy the unfathomable longings of a heart
a human being stretched out between
the infinite horizonless and bottomless nothingness.
Alas that my soul, mind, and mouth
are not more silenced and still;
often given to an excess of speech
I need the silence of Sheol resounding
in the valley of the shadow of death.
—18 June 2021
End of Ascend to the Light Part IV: Returning
Easter is still today:
Friday after Easter Sunday,
eight days as one.
Tomorrow I return to Great Falls,
Easter Saturday. At last. In time.
This lovely quiet blue evening
my last night in Sheridan.
Easter, Day of Resurrection,
when a select few experienced Christ alive
beginning on the third day (by Jewish reckoning)
after the Romans had crucified Jesus.
Easter, the day of seeing the Risen One,
day of visions, of encounters with the Lord
for a few, later granted to others,
still later for us who first must trust
the Christ who’s seen as Risen
Not with bodily eyes, perhaps,
but with the inner eye of mind,
the heart of hearts, internal spirit,
where God appears or breaks in
when God wills to break in
or not.
2. Returning
1
“As a dog returns to his vomit,
so a fool returns to his folly.”
Is that the mode in which I return
to Great Falls, the windy city on the Missouri?
“One can never return home,” we often hear,
for you and your old home have changed.
You left in the past, and the one who now returns
both is and is not the same.
I think that I’m returning to friends.
Some who had been friends
may well become better friends—but others?
“Too much water flowed under the bridge.”
Who knows? Perhaps I’ll make a new friend
or even two, or oddly three,
or square it off at four or nine or sixteen…
I’ll be content to nourish the ones I have
And perhaps to make a single new friend
whether man or woman is not material
but a friend fitting for me,
for whom I’m suitable as well.
2
Return with realistic expectations
that a few friends and I have drifted apart,
that others were hurt by my leaving them once
and need re-assurance that I’m finally back!
Return with awareness that Great Falls is a city--
noisy, congested, full of busyness, and problems--
so find lonely places to make frequent retreats
quiet, daily retreats with my dogs in solitude.
Return to nourish my faith, and perhaps that of others,
return to prepare myself to enter eternity;
return humbled by the lessons of Sheridan--
my need for solitude and friendship in this passing light.
3
“Return, o Israel, to the LORD your God!”
Shuva! “Turn back to me and live!”
Would a return without returning to God
be worthy of the name “Return?”
Return to ascend to light ever glowing
by the dark light of faith ever burning, burning;
ascend to the light not revealed by these lights,
but made darkly visible to the humility of faith.
Return to “the author and finisher of your faith,”
who “calls you out of darkness
into his marvelous light.” Return
on the calloused knees of humility.
A. The Witches of Madison County
(last experiences of Sheridan, Montana)
3. Leaving behind
There’s always something
to leave behind
as one fares forward,
even as one returns.
Sometimes there is much
to leave behind--
baggage to be jettisoned,
thrown overboard to sail forward.
Memories will linger
at least for a while
perhaps until the waves of death
wash over me.
A few were truly witches
or played the part well.
A few warlocks, perhaps,
who still bewitched.
The ugliest witch encountered
has a sweet name masking
what she truly is--
sour deadly poison.
Her ugly soul is more twisted
more perverse
than that of anyone
I’ve been misfortuned to meet.
Of her words and deeds
we shall not speak.
Evil must be shunned
and not empowered.
Bewitching poison seeps itself
into the psyche of another.
See it for what it is
and spit the evil out.
The baggage to be left behind
is the evil one encountered.
Here I write a few words on water
so that they’ll flow away.
4. Rancher justice
I’ve known this rancher over many years;
only slowly did I come to see
cold unmoving darkness in his heart.
What human being does not carry
shadows of darkness in his heart?
Some hide their shadows well.
This one loves to be loved, to be popular,
a Big Man with a friendly broad smile
cowboy hat, jeans, and boots
Who enjoys performing in front of crowds
singing and playing his guitar
being liked and admired by everyone.
Well does he hide the darkness within
cruelty lurking deep in the heart
of one seeming to be what he’s not.
It was a sub-zero dark day in December
the day I saw behind the mask.
My old black Lab Moses and young Elijah
Not permitted inside, waited in the car
as I sat in the rancher’s warm living room
listening to his selected tales.
He began to boast of his aim
with a rifle: he could shoot and kill
an animal at will. And he killed many.
“One day a dog crossed onto my ranch
running on the open range.
I grabbed my rifle and with one shot
I dropped that dog to the ground.
It was legal, ‘cause he was on my ranch.
That black Lab didn’t have a chance--
I shot him in the head
and that dog dropped down dead
dead on my ranch.”
5. Jaded Jaden
The world has its share of fools and idiots,
of corrupted and depraved men and women,
of petty bureaucrats who play the tyrant,
of tyrannical men and women not worth knowing.
Among the witches of Madison County, Montana,
is one jaded Jaden, who works for a hanging judge--
for one who would order hangings if she could.
As so often, like attracts like, even among the dead.
Jaded Jaden, sharper tongued than a rattlesnake,
no doubt prides herself on her supposèd beauty
utterly blind to the deformity of her soul.
How many innocent lives will she infect?
When I asked, probably naively, if she were related
to the highest elected politician in the county,
Immediately she accused me of insulting her,
of insinuating that she was somehow corrupt.
In actuality, that thought was not yet conscious,
but in this case, as in so many others,
we so often accuse ourselves by accusing others.
“If the shoe fits, Witch, wear it,” I could have said
But did not, for she had already condemned herself.
As my friend reported who sat with me for several hours
during Judge Fellen’s hearing of local cases,
“that witch kept staring at us with an evil eye,
and I just just staring right back at her.”
I saw her mal de ojo and marveled at her self-importance,
finding a niche where she could play god’s lieutenant
and be a witch to those whom she hated.
Jaded Jaden is a suspicious woman,
whose soul has shrunk under the weight of ill-will,
already warped by her lack of human kindness,
slowly morphing into a female Dorian Gray:
for fleeting beauty and power, she sold her soul.
6. Justice among the dead
Some matters in life are inherently so ugly and disturbing that they scarcely form the stuff of poetry or music, unless one wishes to imitate the ugliness in words or sounds, and I do not wish to do so. Hence, rather than attempt a poem about utterly non-poetic injustice, I offer these words in a straight-forward form. Names may have been changed to avoid law suits. Wicked human beings are highly dangerous to life and mental wealth.
Let’s say this took place in a town called Brothel, Montana, in the county of Monrovia, in an unspecified year, at the mercy of one Judge Fellen. Let the reader understand.
We begin with the heart of the matter. I have been in many cemeteries, and they are usually peaceful. I have been in a court of justice in ranch country in Montana, and it was a place of mental brutality, injustice, overweening pride, and the power of big money ranchers to do as they please with the relatively dispossessed of the earth.
Keep this image in mind of life in Monrovia, County, where big money ranchers have their sway: they march their cattle on the paved highway and right through the downtown of one of the largest towns in the county, and never stop to clean up their excrement. The town is left filthy because some rancher moved his cattle through the center of town—and I heard no one comment on the disgrace. It’s accepted in ranch country. At the height of the Covid pandemic, I had to step through mounds of cattle feces to get into the grocery store. I asked several people, “How do they get away with leaving all of this steer shit on our main street?” “This is ranch country, they do as they want to. It’s just done that way.” Everyone with whom I spoke accepted the mounds of cattle droppings on the town’s paved street. This is an image of life in America, where the wealthy and powerful do as they wish, and others are left to live with the dirty and smelly consequences.
Now, here’s a glimpse of what transpires in Judge Fellen’s court in Brothel, in the county courthouse in ranch country:
“How do you plead?” Judge Fellen asked the elderly man.
“Not guilty, your honor.”
“To be tried before a judge or a jury?”
“Before a jury, your honor.”
The judge turned to the county attorney present and asked if that could be done in the case of violating a county ordinance. “Yes, your honor,” replied the lawyer.
The judge then said to the accused, “Ok, if you go to trial and lose, I can euthanize your dogs.”
The elderly man’s voice quivered. “What if I plead guilty? Would they be killed?”
“I could euthanize them then, but there’s a smaller chance of doing so.”
“Then I plead guilty, your honor. Now may I say something?”
“What?” She snapped.
“When I walk my dogs in the cemetery, I clean up after them, your honor, using poop bags.”
“Did they urinate in the cemetery?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Do you clean up their urine?”
“No, your honor.”
“Then you have allowed your dogs to be a public nuisance.”
“May I say something, your honor?”
“No. I’ve heard too much from you already. You are making me angry. You are fined $250. Now get out.”’
Then she says as an aside to those present, “I enjoy scaring people.”
7. The hanging judge
The days of Virginia City hangings are past,
are they not? Or are they?
Not with rope in a tree and a stretched neck,
but with ropes of injustice she hangs them high--
the hanging judge who stretches the truth.
“Is it really a crime, your Honor, that dogs urinate
and leave behind fluid that was not cleaned up?
Is it a crime, Judge, to walk dogs in a cemetery
rarely visited by anyone else, for the dead
fear walking among their fellow dead,
reminders of what awaits them?”
In reality, one dare not question this judge,
for heavily she wields power over the powerless,
over those justly or unjustly accused,
waiting for her verdict, her inner-worldly judgment.
In the case of the urinating dogs
Judge Fellen does the bidding of a junior sheriff,
who willingly did the bidding of a senior witch
whose coven crops up among fields of potatoes
and mounds and mounds of cow manure.
The witches of Madison County have worked together
hidden in darkness, unseen by others.
They do their evil under cover of good
or at least hiding behind their judicious roles
as leaders of mad and madding Madison County.
The judge’s final words still ring in my mind,
“I enjoy scaring people.”
To this I say with relief and a Billy Budd smile,
“Farewell, old Rights of Man!”’
And farewell to the witches in britches
And witches in black robes in Madison County.
B. Soul in society
8. Our task
What a struggle to live happily in America now,
not to be discouraged, embittered, disgusted
by so much seen, experienced, and read about.
Here, the most base and noisiest forces dominate.
What a task one has to rise above the sewage,
to overlook so much that one encounters
to find a peaceful center in a dissolving world
where many promise peace by smashing traditions.
America’s fate is not as singular as we may believe;
in a sense, it is the way of all flesh and all being-thing
for all that comes into this world must perish
and corruption in America has long been intensifying.
Ours is not so unlike the Hellenistic Age
dominated by power-seeking ecumenic empires
offering millions virtually nothing of lasting worth
and leaving psyches homeless in a turbulent world.
As Stoics found peace by apátheia, equanimity of mind
whether living in wealth, poverty, or imprisoned,
the Apostle Paul found peace in communing with Christ
even as “the schēma of this kosmos is passing away.”
To find order in psyche and kosmos in an age of disorder
to find eudaimonía within disparate psychic forces
to seek and speak truth in a world of deceit:
these are our present pressing tasks.
9. A set of disturbing questions
As a Benedictine monk outside a monastery,
as a priest no longer celebrating eucharist,
as a Catholic not attending liturgies,
as a disciple of Christ devoid of community,
attachment to “religion” has grown tenuous at best.
Why do I avoid contact with the churches
and in particular with the Catholic Church?
Like hundreds of millions in the world today
I stand apart from all “organized religions.”
Why? Why do I not return?
Return to what? That’s an apt question.
To a monastic community that neither wants me
nor where I wish to reside until death?
To the external practices of Catholic priestly or lay life
given what I have seen and experienced?
Why be active in a Church I no longer respect
as it wallows in political ideologies
dabbles in Gnosticized beliefs and practices?
Why pretend to share faith with men and women
with whom I have fundamental disagreements?
For on the one hand, the Church has been penetrated
by Gnosticism in the form of Marxism and “Progressivism.”
On the other hand, many in the pews are fundamentalists
who take too literally and much too unthinkingly
what they were taught since early childhood.
Given what I think and feel about life in the churches
what am I to do?
That relevant question keeps arising.
Presently, I do not want to be involved in churchianity
as a priest, as a monk, or as a lay person.
I leave open the possibility of a change of heart--
That sooner or later I will long for communion
desire to return to Catholic practices.
Unless and until that change of heart occurs
I stand apart, watching and waiting:
“They also serve who only stand and wait.”
There is a time for involvement
and a time for disengagement.
There is a time to come together as disciples
and a time to sit apart in solitude
like the great prophet Jeremiah.
What shall I do in the interim, waiting?
“I shall arise and go to my father.”
I will do what I can to seek God in truth
and in the peace of soul-aloneness
far removed from crowds, rituals
and deadening routines.
10. Arising in good faith
If I suddenly gathered with crowds for Mass
I would not be doing so, could not do so
In good faith, with a clean and peaceful conscience:
the action would be contrary to what I think.
What good is an external, physical return
without a corresponding internal-spiritual return?
What good is any external religious practice
without a corresponding transformation of the heart?
Now is the time to prepare to return
not necessarily to the externals of faith
but to internal communion of one with God.
Now is the time for genuine renewal--
For healing, cleansing, a renewal of the mind:
“Do not be conformed to this age
but be transformed by the renewing of the mind
that you may discern what is the will of God--
what is good and acceptable and complete.”
Simply stated: one must return internally
before attempting to return externally.
How is the mind to be transformed?
Not by breath or bread alone, “but by my spirit,
says the LORD.”
By God alone does psyche arise to God--
an image returning to the original.
The human partner in the communing dance
must humble itself, opening itself up,
and become “unfeignèdly thankful.”
“‘You must sit down,’ says Love,
`and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.”
11. Steps in writing a poem
How another writes or why
I do not know, nor is it
my present concern.
Now my interest is piqued
by why and how I write.
It begins with a single--
with one alone. A single what?
With one single simple insight,
one pressing question, one teasing memory,
one experience, one single moment’s “seeing.”
An impulse, some one thing
unexpectedly erupts, breaking
into consciousness:
A single note or phrase, then a theme,
Then some accompanying harmonies.
Mind works on the single,
developing it, exploring it,
examining it questioningly
as words, phrases, sentences
emerge into thinking mind.
Then I scribble them down
or begin to type on the computer
changing formulations as I write,
but steadfastly pressing on towards
an end more sensed than seen.
This thought world, this little poem
takes on a life of its own;
it does not quite “write itself,”
but must cooperate in the writing process
taking flesh from mind and hands.
These are the first two steps:
the arising of the single,
then the verbal development
both in thinking mind
and in fluid words on paper.
The third step in the process
is to let whatever is written go.
Set the little world aside--
whether loved or unloved does not matter--
and consciously turn the mind away.
Perhaps return later to what had been written
as a mother bird checking the nest
examining the chick
regurgitating a few worms
and above all, observing.
Changes may suggest themselves--
deemed to be improvements
(whether truly or not, one wonders).
Yet again I must fly away leaving
the written words to fledge and flow:
“Ihr wart ins Wasser eingeschrieben;
So fließt denn auch mit ihm davon.”
12. Macro Beauty / Micro Beauty
Seeing planets and stars at night
tiny lights within a fathomless abyss of darkness
you shudder with a chill of awe
at beauty beyond the reach of mind or speech.
The macro beauty of sea and sky
of starry expanse transcending us
of vast plains stretching out to the limits of sight
contrasts with the finitudes of daily experiences.
A yellow rose bush draws your attention
then a single blossom arrests you.
In that one single glimpse of beauty
limited and now frozen in time’s passing
your breath slows down
your heart seems to cease
and you are suddenly not there
your mind transported into a vast sea
of Beauty unbounded and never-ending.
You and the rose are one and none
in the fathomless sea of Beauty’s infinitude.
13. What dreams may come
c
Night after night, or when taking a nap,
recurring thoughts disturb my dreams
that someone whom I loved has died--
my mother or father, though both died years ago,
or that someone I love is about to die;
Often I dream that Moses is dying
or that I just found him dead
with no heart beat, no breath--
sorrow overwhelming me
preventing restful or deep sleep.
In other dreams, I’m the one dying
or I see myself in a funeral parlor
laid out lifeless and cold.
Dreams of my approaching death--
inescapable, proximate, final.
Of late in waking hours
I think of death frequently
and am much distressed
for the care of my dogs
if they should survive me.
What should I do to prepare for death?
Surely I must draw up a will
and I must provide a home for Elijah
who may well outlive me.
As for my soul, I’ve much work to do.
It is not that death is proud, or evil,
but that death is inexorably final
from the perspective of time:
it ends abruptly, one’s brief time of trial,
without do-over, recess, or extension.
No matter when death comes
it is sudden, a slamming of an iron door;
whatever was alive appears dead and gone,
leaving behind a lifeless corpse
surrounded by shocked and saddened hearts.
Do I dare to go to sleep?
Yes, I must rest to live.
Fears and cares may torment me
as swarming yellow-jackets
leaving no part of me in peace.
***
A response to myself
No Moses and no Elijah to tend?
No poem to write, no thoughts to amend?
No truth to seek to know?
No friend to share with lovingly?
Nothing to do but to die?
Suppose you’ve died already?
Suppose what now you think is life
is merely a construct of the mind?
Are you alive now, or are you dead?
“Who knows if to be alive is to be dead?…”
I grow sleepy and wonder
what dreams may come
tonight or for all eternity
as I drift away, slip away
unconscious of who or what I am.
14. Gnosticism in America
America is no stranger to Gnosticism.
In one form or another, it has been in us
and with us since the earliest days
of European settlements on this continent.
A massive dose of Gnosticism
was injected with the Puritans
of Massachusetts Bay, and from there
spread out over the land.
Foremost examples are the utopian dreams
and experiments, radical abolitionism,
but most noteworthy and influential
of all: self-described “Transcendentalism.”
Millennialists both religious and anti-theistic
dabbled in Gnostic experiences,
in dreams of transforming reality
into a “Kingdom of God on earth,”
or into one of its secular equivalents--
a classless society, a world without wars,
a democracy to transform the world
even when fighting a “war to end all wars.”
The Gnostic possesses certainty,
absolute iron-clad knowledge by which
s/he plans magically to “change the world,”
a kind of alchemy on a grand scale.
The Gnostic knows he is “saved,”
or that he is “enlightened,” a “scientist”
who can lead America and the world
into some imagined “promised land,”
some earthly paradise, a “new age,”
or a “new order of the ages,”
liberating humanity from itself
and its limitations: even ignorance and death.
What knowers are these present “woke” folks
who think they know the secrets of America
founded to be a “racist” and “white supremacist” society
built on the backs of enslaved black labor.
To be told truly, the history of America
must include analysis of Gnosticism in America.
Who has written such a study?
If this history has not been written,
why not? Who would write it?
15. To an unknown
To one I do not know
who may not exist
except as a figment--
some fig leaf of my imagination:
If we sat close to you, for example,
I may look into your eyes and wonder
if you are presenting yourself in speech,
as truthfully as you can.
If I saw suffering deep within you,
I may wish to touch your hand
to help console you,
but not to make you my own.
In your heart of hearts, my friend,
are you happy in your essential aloneness?
Do you feel loneliness in yourself at times,
But find peace in God and in work?
Like me, do you seek to avoid wallowing
in self, and surely not in loneliness?
For loneliness is the self-made cocoon
of a self-protecting soul.
Could you dare to share your heart
and say in truth, “I love you?”
Can you desire human closeness
without seeking physical union?
“I find the thought of physical closeness
both appealing and appalling--
attractive and repulsive at once--
secure aloneness is the safer, saner course.
Do I dare to dabble in divine madness
at seventy or ever again?
Cannot one love intensely
without physical union?
How I both want and do not want
physical closeness with anyone.
How guarded is my heart;
how lonely is my soul.”
The way forward is through love,
freed from undue attachment,
freed from the desire to use,
open to the other’s inner world.
16. William Frederick
Ninety-five
walking without limping
body erect, not stooped
full head of still-graying hair
no major illnesses
compos mentis
sharp intellect
distinct, intelligent speech
not a single complaint
quiet-spoken
no visible anger or depression
pleasant and kind.
Aged ninety-five
a recent widower
coming from Nebraska to Montana
living with his son and wife
retired investigative CPA
served as a Navy corpsman
with Marines in World War II
father of one, a physician
with grand-children
gentle blue eyes
smooth, clean-shaven face
gentlemanly.
17. Werde wär du bisst
I’m becoming the corpse I always was
or have always been becoming
from before consciousness began to arise
as awareness of sensations
until all awareness ceases.
Not an animated corpse
but a living, self-moving body
sensing, wondering, seeking
questioning, loving, enjoying,
knowing within unknowing.
A part becoming a part
of a comprehending whole
both known and unknown
alive and enlivened
to an end you do not know.
18. America the “woke”
Dreaming we were a democracy
we woke up and became totalitarian
an overreaching ecumenical empire
dominated by Gnostic dreamers
pretending they are “woke.”
Somewhere in the fog or haze
I fell into a state of aporía
down into a world of perplexity
in which “I don’t know”
comes readily to mind.
The mass obsession with “race”
reverberations of Nazi Germany
with their “science” of phrenology
to determine who was safely “Aryan”
and who were demonically “Semite.”
What produced this Gnostic-woke regime?
Excessive loves of fame, wealth, power?
The greedy drive to dominate
to “transform the world,” transmogrifying
a victim society into their nightmare “vision.”
America, you murder the infants
in your womb, and call it
liberation; you poison and kill the minds
of your young and immaturing
and call it education
all while loudly declaring
that we’re becoming a free society
a democracy, government
of the people, by the people
for the people--
at least for our rulers
the dominators of our lives and minds.
The über-rich grow in wealth and power
and we deplorable underlings
serve at the pleasure of our elites.
“How did this happen so suddenly?”
Sleeping? It was all foreshadowed
in the Marxist invasion of academia
and in the drug-dreaming 1960’s.
Did you miss the Gnostic revolution?
“Make America great again.”
A clever slogan, an empty goal
a nebulous chimera.
A closed prison world or mad destruction
frightening and increasingly likely.
19. The imperial gods
Contemporary Gnostics construct their god:
an organized ideological party to get and keep power,
the cult of self to dominate without restriction,
an ever-expanding vortex of controlling powers
in the form of the centralized Idol State
with its voracious and imperious bureaucracies,
its injudicious court system to punish enemies,
extermination camps for the “unwanted,”
instruments of mind control in the hideous hydra
of education, mass media, entertainment, diversions.
The imperial god of Communist China
does not differ essentially from the imperial god
of the United States of America.
Each exists to monopolize power
and to bring about its Gnostic-ideological dreams
within and without territorial boundaries.
The only limit to the power of the idol State
comes from uncontrollable necessities of nature
and from countervailing imperial gods--
China, America, the European Union, Russia…
Those who seek power within the bellies
of the bloated, insatiable State gods
have sold their souls and interior freedom
to their overwhelming lust for power
to realize their imagined utopian schemes
20. Layered psyche
What was, is;
what will be, is not.
The future has no real existence,
does not partake in being;
what has been both formed
and lives in consciousness.
Presently I am seventy
but am also a little boy
even an infant, a young man;
and all that I have ever been
formed who and what I am now,
still living in the psyche
and can be summoned up
drawn into the light of consciousness
yet again and again.
What I was, I am yet--
and all that I was
and have ever been, I still am.
Does all that I have been necessarily
live in my concrete consciousness?
or need it be brought back
into present awareness
right now to live again
in the eternal noon of the conscious mind?
A sound, a thought, a single smell
may suddenly awaken the sleeper
as heretofore unremembered layers of the past
now take form, return to life again
in the presence that is mind
in one particular consciousness.
In dreams fragments of the past
suddenly return to a kind of life
as unwilled and partial remembering,
a blending of wishes, imaginings,
fears, desires, particular memories
become alive now in yet a new form.
Now I am remembering
sitting in school, second grade class
winter of ’59 in York Harbor, Maine,
daylight streaming into the lit room
and I heard about, read, saw, and touched
the new Lincoln penny.
I am fascinated by the change
seen and touched on the penny:
the boxy building etched with its strong facade,
rather than by the man’s familiar chiseled face;
the bright shiny copper color
warmly appealing to me
both then and now, perhaps now
because it appealed then--
that concrete experience living again
in a right-now act of remembering
in present-forming consciousness
giving a kind of reality to what had become
unremembered as if dead and gone.
What was real can and may live again
being re-enlivened by conscious mind.
The re-enlivening of all or some that was
in mind by mind is one meaning
one aspect of immortality.
What has been may be again
taking form afresh in consciousness
in the pellucid luminosity
that is reality, active, alive
present in the presence that is:
consciousness in-forming being.
***
If what has been experienced
can and does abide in psyche
and can be raised up in consciousness,
does not all live forever in
that ever-present consciousness encompassing
each and all that has ever been in time?
“To God all are alive.”
“He is not the god of the dead
but of the living.”
In divine consciousness alone is life--
Zoé aionios,
true life, eternal life.
What is not in divine consciousness
is not.
What is in the consciousness of God
is forever now
and cannot not be.
“Because I live you also live."
21. On the battlefields
I have walked the battlefields of Antietam
and of Gettysburg,
and read accounts of death-dealing battles
as I walked the blooded fields disturbed in solitude--
the Dunker church, cornfield, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge
on well preserved Antietam, near the creek and the town of Sharpsburg;
the Devil’s Den, Round Top, Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill,
and so many monuments and statues among the watchful trees
and the famous giant map with detailed accounts in Gettysburg--
on hot and muggy summer mornings
and early autumn afternoons
in the memorial cemeteries
reading the name on grave stones
of so many young, mostly very young men,
tears rolling down my cheeks
but I did not bleed.
“Do you forget how I bled?
Only after lying beneath the blazing sun
for interminable days and anguished nights
was my bullet-ravished body
buried in Sharpsburg.
Do you not remember?"
22. There is a stream
There is a stream that flows
along steep and wooded banks
and far upstream
away from sight or memory
may be a dam of earthenware
that may be slowly breaking apart
for the stream is rising
as unusual shapes float by
the water becoming muddier
obscuring the creek bed
I stand staring at the stream
fixed and nearly paralyzed
not knowing what or why
but seeing suddenly
utterly unexpectedly
some single image of a memory
or fragment of imagination
not willfully summoned up
and not lingering
but burning into consciousness
arising with the stream
and quickly passing on
leaving me wondering
what and why
when I was not there--
or was I?
Now I can recall the image
without the first-born fresh intensity
and wonder at the curled silver hair
and at the left hand smoothly sliding
into the tight-fitting tan leather glove.
They belonged to the same person
I strongly sensed, interiorly knew
someone known unknown
but with whom I have felt
a strange and inexplicable bond.
And the stream still flows on.
23. In an old cemetery
Winds wearied of blowing
across the graves and tombstones
through the lilac bushes
and old maple trees.
In the east the sun pierced
the remaining coolness of the night.
Out of the graves arise sounds
dense sounds, tragic sounds,
the strains of the final movement
of Mahler’s ninth overwhelm the earth
promising the end of life
and the triumph of withering death
disfigured cemetery
never completed, never ordered
not empty of meaning or purpose
but pale in meaning, desultory in purpose
shadows barely darker than the light
striking the weathering gravestones
names of those who died before
they ever truly lived
folded together in disorder
somewhere neither in time nor out of time
here but no longer here
nor there or anywhere definite
as the remains wither away underground
unseen unseeable unrecognizable
devoid of any form they had in life
devoid of any coherent meaning
silent and still still
becoming what they always never were
24. Mutuality
Tired from a lack of sleep
after two feelingful hours
as mind was kept awake
by the unaccustomed sense
of mutuality
my being penetrating yours
your being penetrating mine
made both possible and actual
as two souls surrender lovingly
to one another in God
Not by body touching body
but mind flowing into mind
as two disclosed unclothed
themselves to one another
freely and in truth.
Gently you entered in
by words dwelling welling
in your long land-locked heart
now reaching through time and space
into the fertile soil of my soul.
Gently I entered into you
by words freely flowing
from hidden recesses of a heart
long seeking but not attaining
mutual penetration until now.
25. The love god
By the awakened love god
he entered in--
into the opened soul
of one he loves
lying receptively before him
each one yielding to the other
in unfeigned mutuality,
two conjoined as one
in acts of self-surrender
of willing self-giving.
They had been in a restaurant
down by the dock on the tidal river
hands touching outstretched hands
eyes meeting, smiles forming
not attending to the cooling food.
Presumably unseen by others
one reached beneath the table
and felt a leg, the hand climbing
upward slowly, noiselessly
possibly not seen, but warmly felt.
No longer restraining themselves
they hurried from the restaurant
and found their way to a motel.
They had shared thoughts and feelings
for weeks or for eternity
and now they present themselves
as they are unhiddenly
each one giving and receiving
all they have to give and are
the love god rejoicing.
26. Loved
Leaving the world knowing you were loved
I was loved, truly loved
by men and women of good character
and most kind generous hearts.
A few of their names come to mind
never to be forgotten
deeply and sweetly cherished
for who they are forever in God
Sara, that most beautiful woman
overflowing with such goodness
loving me even me
until I rode off to the Midwest.
Pat, Air Force Major, married with children
most gentle and kind father imaginable
who loved me as I am
asking nothing in return.
Judy, wounded soul yet giving
of herself in every way I’d receive
waiting patiently for me
waiting perhaps still waiting.
Daniel, the monk-priest, man of God
manly and strong in body and soul
rock solid character who endured
so much from me unflinchingly.
Before them all, my parents
sister and brother survivors
of so much strain and stress
sharing of good and bad alike.
You and you whom I have loved
and love not well but with intensity
sometimes unfocused passion
but mindful of the Lover’s art.
On my deathbed, whose name
will come so naturally to my lips
as I pass from light into dark eternal light
and disappear from mortal sight?
Rummy, Zoe, Moses, Elijah?
Or you, who came to me
when still a very young boy
as Jesus, even Jesus?
27. Silenced in Sheol
“Arise, and get thee forth and seek
A friendship for the years to come.”
—Tennyson, “In Memoriam”
Friends I have had and cherished
friends I have and seek to love.
In God’s time and way yet another
friend may ascend into my stark heart.
I will seek with a quieted soul in solitude
still waiting for the moment, the kairos,
not of my making but more of the Lord’s--
whether in time or in eternity.
Presently my soul is silenced in Sheol
perhaps for my faults and failures
perhaps to purify a mortal’s mind
busy about so many too many things.
Here in Sheol I await God’s undisclosed time
remaining inactive in outward rituals
as I return and re-learn to seek in solitude
that which draws me ever on, hinan.
What human beings name as God alone
can satisfy the unfathomable longings of a heart
a human being stretched out between
the infinite horizonless and bottomless nothingness.
Alas that my soul, mind, and mouth
are not more silenced and still;
often given to an excess of speech
I need the silence of Sheol resounding
in the valley of the shadow of death.
—18 June 2021
End of Ascend to the Light Part IV: Returning