Distant Speck

Tonight the quarter moon is a gleaming scythe
clearing the mind sky of all that is superfluous.

We steal along the horizon in our stealth shoes
leaving no evidence of our passing, not a ripple.

Should people of the future look back on this night,
our very presence here will seem inconceivable.

In a solar system tens of billions of years from now,
our light signature may momentarily flash in the sky.

Perhaps we will be like those nearly invisible meteors
which flame out in the air just above the ground.

It matters little that we may go unnoticed — nothing
with a name or form is other than a brief illusion.

In the darkened depths of the shoreless sea where
no one keeps time, tiny incandescent beings glide.

Somehow we are drifting with them too, grazing
on vague memories, our gaze fixed on eternity.

From deeper still, an enormous mouth is rising,
as if it could swallow the whole ocean in a gulp.

Our thoughts no longer dwell on what’s to come,
we swim in a silence within an ever larger silence.

We don’t know where we’re going, even as we’re
pulled inexorably towards that distant speck of light.

 

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Original Photo by Julie Fletcher

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Little by Little

This is where we’ve found ourselves

the only sound: some subtle hum shared
between resting rocks and tangled roots

the darkness here is not merely an absence
of light, it’s the suffocation of entombment

at last we can admire the sleek earthworm,
its sensual glide through moist soil layers

when we cease struggling, panic dissolves
into calm acceptance — so much is beyond
our control, we can’t enforce our will

even the highest flying bird will never breach
the upper stratosphere — this is the world
of limitation, of binding constraint

we wanted to see how we’d react when faced
with the apparent restrictions of raw physicality

still, nothing is as it seems here, nor are we
the solid mass we now assume ourselves to be

gradually, our hands move the dirt away
from our faces in slow swimming motions

little by little, the starry sky appears

 

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Bob O’Hearn created a fundraiser for Second Chance Chi.
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For my birthday this year, I’m asking for donations to Second Chance Chi. I’ve chosen this nonprofit because their mission means a lot to me, and I hope you’ll consider contributing as a way to celebrate with me. Every little bit will help me reach my goal. I’ve included information about Second Chance Chi below.

Mission / Vision / Values

We feel it is our responsibility to protect and improve the lives of abandoned, abused, homeless unhealthy and needy dogs in hi-kill shelte…

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'Artwork by @[1518101504:2048:Nancy Daleo], Her art never fails to amaze me. Always great work from a great person and artist.'

Bob’s Birthday Fundraiser for Second Chance Chi

Fundraiser for Second Chance Chi by Bob O’Hearn

For my birthday this year, I’m asking for donations to Second Chance Chi. I’ve chosen this nonprofit because the… Continue Reading
$41 raised of $2,500
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  • Joseph Molgaard

Joseph Molgaard and 1 other donated.

Memorial Day

Even though we’ve been at war with somebody
somewhere for most of our history, we proudly
claim to represent the cause of peace and justice.

… See More

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Mazie Lane, Wendy Lowman and 9 others
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  • Dianne Carroll (We’ll keep Australia – don’t want to hurt no kangaroos)

 

  • Raspberry Raspberry I think history has taught us to be respectful of those who have gone to war to fight for this cause or that one. It seems to me, Bob, most of the wars US citizens have fought have been for the sole benefit of someone else. Corporate greed. Oil profi…See More
  • Robyn Feldewerth Well said, Bob! Sad truth that few see.
  • Joseph Molgaard So much truth here my Dear friend. Searching for Peace without it costing anyone else. 🌹

 

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Rock River

The river that once flowed here dried up long ago. The reason doesn’t matter. Things change, what more needs saying? We’re standing in a long broken highway of stones and boulders, all baking in the sizzling ambience of another summer scorch. We could make up a convoluted story about how we got to this moment in the midst of timelessness, but why bother? We don’t even know what or where we really are, even with all of our intricate narratives.

Just so, the river bed is silent. Is it sleeping, dreaming? Are we sleepwalkers following an empty stream in this part of the dream? To the animal eye, rocks are mere rocks, but here is an interesting secret: open, aware spaciousness without name or any limit. Likewise, every stone is consciousness itself in its temporary rock suit. If we have learned to be quiet, we can enter into anything, even any stone. Let’s do it now.

Within this rock world, which is not anything like we may have imagined in our story, everyone is mysteriously present. Moreover, there is no greater or lesser — we are all equal here. Remember when we used to long for more, different, better? Not here. We want for nothing, require nothing, have no need to connive, construe, cheat or steal, lie or exaggerate, crave, starve, hate, or war. It’s so relaxing to discard all of that and just be. What a great relief to leave the hungry animal suit by the river bank and bathe in this impersonal rock serenity!

A thought may occur that we should do it more often, but thoughts have no substance, mind has no shape to grasp. Below the ground, the trees which populate the lush land are sharing their observations in a harmonious language which every rock understands. Above, a warm breeze brushes over the stones. Somewhere there is a great sigh, as if the whole world was gratefully relaxing on the seventh day, the final day.

At a certain time, the water may return, but we’re in no hurry. We’re the rock of ages — we look neither forward or back. We are light slowed down to an easy pace. We’re the open, aware space of vast unqualified emptiness, with nothing to crow about or regret. When the river flows again, we will gleam and sparkle in the liquid transparency of pure delicious wetness, and because we are water beings too, we will wear down every stone.

 

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Beautiful World

We’re like spare change in the pocket of someone
who lives in a world where cash means nothing.

That world is a beautiful sociopath. Buried within
each person is a spark which the world is always
trying to extinguish. Inevitably, it will succeed.

It starts as a small pebble in your shoe, grows
monstrous, becomes your head stone.

Don’t imagine it cares what markings we carve
on its surface, but deep within it, a spark is buried
which gradually works its way out into the light.

In the dark cemetery, lights are always emerging
from their cool graves and rising into the night sky.

They become the bright stars we wish upon, beacons
sailors use to find their way, the impossible hope
of all lost voyagers who become more lost still.

It was the journey itself that mattered, a story
of a spark that traveled in the dark with a few
coins in its pocket. With each step the coins
rubbed together, making a bit of noise.

Perhaps that’s how we will each be remembered:
a slight jingle jangle heard in the dark on a rock
of a world, a beautiful world of tombstones.

 

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The Match

The early dusk sky was still ablaze
with the glowing embers of the dying day.
I saw you hunched over the burning funeral ghats,
inhaling the smoky perfume of charred flesh and bone
like a macabre dope fiend, then go drunkenly staggering
through the sewer-lined streets of the night-time town,
brazenly juggling flaming batons of birth and death
like some crazy carnival clown on a grisly spree.

Look, in the temples and shrine rooms your devotees
are offering gilded gifts at the makeshift altars of their
superstitious fantasies, but I can see you, Devi, and I
know that you’re only doing your job, so no praise
or blame will escape my lips, just get on with it:
this world is dry tinder, you wield the match.

 

ghat

Music in a Time of Prophecy

The soloist went so dark that the music became visible.
It formed itself a pair of feet and walked off the stage.

Wandering into the hushed audience, it touched people.
As it did, they sighed in bliss and their light came on.

The walls and ceiling of the theater became transparent.
Even without squinting, one could see the solar system.

The planets, many with moons, moved to the music as if
choreographed by someone we should thank and praise –

not because they need it, but simply because that would be
the right thing to do in the case of such celestial artistry.

The music now was emanating from a Japanese garden.
It was either in the past or in a time to come someday.

We were an audience in the form of oaks, pines, cedars.
A portion of us was water, another part Nightingale.

The music was one thing which included everything
visible and invisible in sweet undifferentiated harmony.

In the soft breeze, you trembled to express your pleasure.
From your branches, the cherry blossoms rained down.

I could have been you right at that moment, or you me.
Our music was one string of ecstasy, was everything.

The single flute and hovering sky exchanged places.
For the first time, the crows finally saw their shadows.

This may have taken place during a time of prophecies,
but for now, even the court prophets remained silent.

In the subterranean lairs of burrowing blind creatures,
a subtle music formed itself into certain kinds of rocks.

The rocks drifted inexorably towards the surface light.
In the garden, their stone hymns radiated consciousness.

They were a perfection of music, or music’s very source.
As we listened closely, any lingering doubts dissolved.

 

a

Moses Strikes the Rock Twice

The first time Moses struck the rock,
the vibration resonated down into the ground
which had grown the rock itself out of star stuff,
vibrated way down to the deep one who slept there
before the bible, before Adam and Eve, before the world
was called out of the empty darkness, before any idea
of the universe had arisen in the mind of the Godhead,
before the existence of any Godhead, even though
the Godhead has no beginning, no word.

Nowadays, no longer does Moses matter, nor the rock,
nor the water which flowed therefrom, nor the anger
of some vengeful desert deity, nor any lingering view
of a promised land, that poisoned land, forever aflame
with the hatreds of chosen men and their troubled gods,
forever the unsettled cradle of the deep one, awakened
at the second rock strike, who moves in terrible majesty
below the surface of burning sands, who easily devours
fissionable materials and digital footprints in a gulp,
who regards the boastful claims of the self-proclaimed
enlightened ones as one would the brief splashing sounds
of rain on a roof, who receives all but asks for nothing,
who lives in the heart as the timeless light behind the mind.

That unspeakable one watches the settlements of the foolish
rise and swiftly crumble, great cities with forgotten names,
rich with gleaming pyramids and garish temples dedicated
to those fantastic but ambivalent creatures who slyly hide
in infinitesimal grains of sand, patient as a desert, only to
re-animate once the proud works of men have vanished,
whence they emerge to celebrate the rumor of the deep one,
the one who holds them all within a thought, a daydream,
a bubble of nothingness, a random breeze softly hummed
on a summer night, when the baby Moses was set afloat
in his little boat, and smiling Krishna played his flute.

Bereft of any genuine illumination of the hidden meaning,
they sponsored instead the desperate religions of the blind
to distract them from the secret knowledge and set them
against each other with their thought weapons and taunts.
All the while, the fabled awakened one is coursing in deep
prajnaparamita, the same state in which we all now exist,
except for the blinders of hope and fear passed down to us
by the old temple gods who still tremble at the deeper sound
of the one who turns the great wheel with a mighty sigh
as it surely must while it separates the grain from the husk.

 

 

roch