I never denied the beauty:
Imperial pomp of sunrise,
The seductive glamour of sunset.
The snaking voluptuous river,
Swollen with incessant downpours,
The glitter of rare raw minerals,
A glimmer waiting in the depths.
Beyond the mist in the distance,
The harrowing sublimity of mountains.
The perceived chant of the angels,
Drifting across the aether.
The vertiginous descent of the eagle,
Intent upon the sighted prey.
The patient strength of the ox,
Harnessed for growth and generation.
The gilded and haloed lion,
Surveying the buffet of the savannah.
The shining lights of the city,
On the snow capped hilltop.
The voluminous text of flesh
Awaiting to be read in the dark.
The beauty of the world is undoubted:
But I suspected treachery
A beauty that bites after caressing
Wanting to leave its mark
Because it too is just passing
A floating world of samsara,
Always changing; never
Still: completes a cycles,
Pauses briefly before transformation
Then same as it ever was,
Is or will be.
The ceaseless tears Rained down my cheeks, My breathes ragged gulps In between a wail and a sob, A heart riven twice again My stricken rent soul Searching in this isolated place: I ask the angels, Where is the body of My Lord? Where has my Beloved gone? But only silence I turn around To see a man, a stranger Possibly the groundskeeper A tiller of soil, a planter of seeds He asks me gently As to the reason for my distress I answer that I need to find him, My brother, my father, My companion, my son, The one who gave me succour In the darkness, Cast out the seven demons With ease and gentleness, If you know where he has been taken Tell me so that I may tend to his body; To which he simply said Mary: I had recognized Him not. How could I have not known It was Rabboni Heavenly consort Transformed with inner light, I rushed over But he stilled me, saying, Do not touch me Mary, my tower of strength, My sister, my child, My bride, my mother, Divine Sophia For although I have descended To harrow Hell I have yet to ascend To the One, Beyond this realm of matter, To the father and mother of us all Not the mother who bears Not the father who raises Not the creator of this world But the Source of the Word Go now, my Beloved, You who always understood me the best, Be the apostle to the apostles And tell them where I am going.
Ma Yuan-The Waving Surface of the Autumn Flood c1222
There, among the canals, every twist and turn
Leads to the unexpected, yet another splendour,
Riot of decadence, symbolic decay, hinting at danger;
Look upward though at the sun illuminating the water
Flowing past the grandeur hidden in vaults
Towards the ever present Island of the Dead,
Flooding the damned Cities of the Plain
Further still rushing beyond the Pure Land
To cascade inexorably onto the Other Shore.
Here, in this place's essence of impermanence, I taste eternity.
This outer dazzling radiance
Imbues with melting desire
Refracting in stained glass
Shines over frothing waves
Casts over sundial shadows
Haloes the heroic statuary
Banished within four walls
Where silence, solitude reign
Realm of inner marvels
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