by Alan Harris
1997 & 1998
Knocking on the sky invites an endless answer.
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Free PDF download of this entire book: Knocking on the Sky in Adobe Acrobat PDF format (25 formatted pages including color photos) Free Adobe Acrobat Reader is required. |
Contents
(Click on any divider between poems to return here.)
Storm Tea
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
Please, come on in. Those kerosene lamps, the ones by the windows, are flickering today. Listen to November's gale out there moaning through leafless trees and twisting off sickly limbs. The winterbeast clears its throat, eh? How did you make it through this windstorm that rattles my picture frames against the walls? And why are you here when no one else came? But never mind my questions-- welcome, then, to tea. Welcome, yes, to tea-- to tea from a pot I forgot I had in a far corner of the cupboard. Darjeeling today--I hope it's okay. How did you find my place-- not to mention why-- or, did what's here find you? Now here, have some sips and stay as long as you can, for the wind outdoors is surely fiercer than we. Window lamps flickering near you and me and tea-- given everything, what else would there be? |
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To Wake Up To
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
The world disappeared entirely for a few hours. Gone. Where were you? Don't say, in your bed. You were down in up under beyond worlds. You took the whole shebang off like your socks and went deep into nowhere. I was there too, but I didn't see you-- or anyone else. Dead into a most alive life we sank. Dark into a colorless light. Reincarnation, is there? Every day, let's say. Your bed was pregnant all night with you, but now, in the morning, cut the cord, breathe today's first breath, cry quietly with first muscle, and go. There is go, and we must. There is day, and we mount it. It's all a ride but we must pedal, a pleasure but we must groan. Welcome back to your thatness after a blissful this. You have made it possible for there to be whatever humanness is, and so have I, and every each of us in our nowhere core. |
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Asking the Quiet Fire
The Forest As Teacher
Photographic Version
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I ask the autumn forest where my grandmother has gone. The quiet fire replies, "On down this road, around a further bend." I ask why she has gone so far. Again I hear the forest's quiet fire, "She isn't far, not far at all." I ask the forest why its leaves are turning color. "Only to allow their falling down to earth to make a fertile mattress for the winter snow." I ask the forest whether I myself am turning color like these leaves. The forest answers, "Yes, your life is cyclical, like that of leaves, and all you've done will fall away to fertilize your next encounter with the summer sun." I ask why there is human pain and error. Soon the forest says, "There is a larger scheme within which solitary lives abide. My scattered twigs may fall, whole trunks break off, but underneath these failures lies an all-embracing safety. Twigs born high fall low, and so it is with human beings, but pain and error feed the healthy breathings, in and out, of greater lungs than yours." I ask how trees remember where their sap is kept in winter. Patiently the forest says, "Communities of roots contain an underknowing as to where all sap and nourishment belong, just as your deepest sleep allows reentry into wakefulness with no lost memory and even increased energy. You move about, and yet your rootedness remains." I ask the forest how disease and selfishness can be allowed within the same grand scheme that makes a splash of colors beautify the autumn months. The forest turns my vision to a tree half-fallen, yet held up by neighbor trees. It then inquires of me, "If all were health, then where would people learn the golden art of altruism?" I ask the forest why some people suffer from events they've had no part in causing. Pausing at this question, it replies, "Like forest life, humanity is fully interwoven. Say that I'm a healthy branch but on a sickly tree, and fall to earth one day along with this whole tree whose weakness in the trunk gives way to heavy winds. But I'm not just this hapless branch, now fallen in my prime-- I'm also Forest as a whole. The spring will see me sprout again as leaf or branch exactly where some sapling may have need of me." I ask the forest to suppose all trees were burned away, and every human died-- what then? "You ask me more than forests know, but never doubt with such an earth as this, where air and water flow, where soil and lightning meet-- that here the Silent Force may manifest itself as life, and grow again. In fact, my roots feel far beyond their depth to areas of sustenance where life is all there is." I ask the forest who it was that made this scheme of life and death. I look at trees and sky and soil while waiting for an answer. All around and all within is silence. |
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Spirits and Spooks
A Rhyme for Halloween
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
Today is the ghost of the future's past-- your now is a ghost, my now is a ghost, for whatever we do will last. There's hope for tomorrow's yesterday-- you are a hope, I am a hope, if we nourish each other today. Regrets are old spooks that may rattle their chains-- fear is a spook, hate is a spook, and so are diseases and pains. So a spirit sits down in your rocking chair-- What can it do? Can it say boo? Just smile so it knows that you care. Halloween raises our old spooks and bummers-- feelings that dump, nights that go bump, and dumbs that evolve into dumbers. But the morning will bring in the Day of All Saints, who were able to clear their existence of fear and their motives of self-serving taints. What saints may have done, surely any can do if we make a start and open our heart so that giving and love may flow through. Today is the ghost of the future's past-- your now is a ghost, my now is a ghost, for whatever we do will last. |
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Falls Visitor
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A hundred feet from Niagara's Horseshoe Falls hurtling blindly down with groaning gravitation stood the antebuilding all a-color inside, and a-glitz with trinkets and toys crafted in worldwide shacks. Chattering T-shirted tourists, sporting transparent rainsuits and chewing chewing gum, made ready for their big wows. Cheep! from suddenly ceilingward descended the speech of a sparrow trapped in this house of gee whiz-- divinity by surprise. |
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Dilemma
To a Guest Reading by Paul Meier|
Yes, no-- every day deeper-- this, that-- maybe-- no, not. Grinding of the gods peels away raw chaff from bleeding grain, daydream by nightmare, week by moment. Heartbeats nor breathing repair this rift that tumult has torn between two rights that are both wrong. Struggle nor simmer brings any glimmer of release. The breath continues, but the blood grows thicker. Yes, no-- it is not given to know, but to go forward-- or just go. |
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Still Life
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
Sunday mind picks up its pen behind easy-chair eyes when, three inches left from a stained-glass cardinal hanging red against the window glass from a suction cup and hook, is seen a real dove outdoors fluffed up for warmth on a telephone wire amid almost no snowfall. Glenn Gould's Bach Toccatas play precisely through the furnace blower's bass while an off-duty iron stands unplugged and cool beside its folded handkerchiefs on a flimsy-legged ironing board between here and the brown couch that bears a draped gold afghan, throw pillow, and open briefcase. Eyes divert to a tiny white nick in the near edge of the lamp table and stare for measureless minutes-- then return without reason to the window. The dove hasn't moved, nor has the window's cardinal of glass perceived this breathless snow, so light as to be nearly finite. |
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As flies skim the pond |
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Prayer of Being
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
Oh Nameless One, if I, as I, am not meant to be, then how could I sit here writing a prayer of thanks for my being and for the far reach I am from dust? My prayer only asks that, to the sea of goodness that I feel all around me, I might be allowed to add my anonymous drop. Today you overwhelm my most lovingness by how strangely deep you go into, through, and around me. Waitingly, doingly, goingly, searchingly, my heart offers back to its Source a hum that sounds as much like a Bach Prelude as an OM. Amen |
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Counting to One
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
How many skies has the boomeranging moon flown over? One, which breathes. How many lives have you and I lived? One, deepening inside births and deaths. How many humans are in the world? One, with splendidly many bodies and souls. How many religions are there? One, tucked into softest of hearts. How many universes? Count to one until the stars fall out of it. How many questions are there? One big one. What is the question? That's it. |
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Five Definings
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
Sky: awfullywhere above, is ours to (of course) share with (whoever may be) God. Earth: much underrated, sturdily (all the same) holds up (whatever may be) the sky. Heaven: sky and earth in a goodly (feel the flow) mix holding (want them in vain) all unholdables. Hell: doorway to the back (way back) stairs leading to (wherever may be) heaven. Friendship: life sharing light hearts (and heavy) without benefit (or hindrance) of shouldness. |
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Passing Through
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
I'm only a guest here? Everything provided. Need a bed? Have a bed. Need an arm? Have two. Heart and brain? No problem. But what to do here? Everything provided. Businesses, forests and farms, books and libraries, churches, holy words, other people to do things with. But what to be here? Though only a guest, do rearrange things, attract and repel others, leave your mark on a world full of everybody's marks. Thank you. I won't stay long. |
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Railing West
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
Out through my train's dirty window I see the clear yellow sun sliding its way down into stardom. A sudden stand of trees whisking by allows water to gleam up from between their trunks, still as the reflected sky. Suburban homes too new for trees swiftly turn like fashion models on a stage. Sinking like an orange lollipop, the sun is being licked away fast from underneath by tomorrow. Dusk is now underway with this ambivalent sky, neither gray nor blue, tempting my train westward into nightfall. I have lived long enough to have respect for tomorrow. I have one sun only, and only one tomorrow. I wait and wait for tomorrow until it's all I am. |
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Night
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
Upside-down flowers, are we not? With stems rooted upward into the deep? Your soul, a kindly conduit, umbilicates your body into the placental night that is fathomless and fully empty of where and when. Take away the night? Absurd. One night minus one night equals one night. Afraid of night? Dread the shadows? Learn from them. Shadows tell stories, emit fragrant meanings, take you deeper than your feet. Especially observe inner shadows, even if they speak no words-- hear them out, and hear them in. Look beneath shadows-- drop through into wider shadows and feel safe in full bewilderment. Afraid of unknowing? Make your peace with it, and your days may smile. When you know definitely, the vast night will remind you that you know nothing. When you wish for powers, the night may wisely hold them back. But to be still with night may bring you as much truth as your heart can hold. Night wants to abide underneath your day while you work-- wants to enwomb you between days. Let night have its way, its gentle way-- soften into its fullness. Night is the container of nothing less than everything. |
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Wounded Holidays
To a Guest Reading by Paul MeierDedicated to the Compassionate Friends
and all who are grieving the loss of a child
Young, they left our homes. In a moment, long or quick,they were gone.Dewdrops turned into teardrops, the shining sea too smallto hold our grief."Give us our children back," we pled as we noticed their plateless placesat the table.Regret made a river through our days, tempering laughter,pervading sudden silences.Bodies they had through us, with us-- bodies housing minds and souls--no longer.The holiday season's return makes throb now the woundswe felt at their parting,wounds which may heal in time, we hope,into strength--but not yet, in this season of snowflakes that sting and cookiesthat somehow taste of vinegar."If only," goes our carol. If only they could return to us--but no.If only we could speak with them--but no.If only we could love them so intensely that they couldfeel our presence right now--but yes, yes to this one, a thousand yesses--they can.How can they not feel our love, being core in core with us,heart in heart?We give love this season to them and to each other as plundered parentsand wounded healers.With love flowing, something in our lives-- a magnificent, mysterious Something--guides us like a star. |
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Above poem is included in the
Christmas Reflections PDF book Holiday poems to print for gifts or for keeps Free PDF Download - 2.0 MB, 18 pages Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (also free) |
Here at the Close of Christmas Day
To a Guest Reading by Paul Meier|
Tonight the season breathes easier again-- the ribbons are cut, the paper's been ripped. We silenced last night with candles and song, and today we enjoyed the meal of the year, allowing for Uncle Carl's jokes, Cousin Peter's pomposity, and righteous kitchen clatter before the family feast began. The season's reason? I don't ask why, nor does why ask me-- I just roll with days of way too much and nights of less than nothingness like a child held safe in the all-year arms of Mother Everything, whose love is all there is. I used to fear, then fall from these arms of love, but where was there to fall except Here? If Here can be taken away, we are doomed--but so far, Here seems all there's ever been and perhaps will ever be. This living room now smells of candle smoke and new perfumes as Christmas magic leaks away into midnight, we still we. |
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Above poem is included in the
Christmas Reflections PDF book Holiday poems to print for gifts or for keeps Free PDF Download - 2.0 MB, 18 pages Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (also free) |
Clouds
A Study in One Act
To a Reading by Alan Harris|
I've opened the curtain of my east window here above my desk, and I sit now in a holy theater before a sky-blue stage. A little cloud above the neighbor's trees resembles Jimmy Durante's nose for a while, then becomes amorphous as it slips on north. Other clouds follow, big and little and tiny on their march toward whereness. Wisps of them lead or droop because there must always be leading and drooping.
The trees seem to laugh at the clouds while yet reaching for them with swaying branches. Trees must think that they are real, rooted, somebody, and that perhaps the clouds are only tickled water which sometimes blocks their sun. But trees are clouds, too, of green leaves--clouds that only move a little. Trees grow and change and dissipate like their airborne cousins. And what am I but a cloud of thoughts and feelings and aspirations? Don't I put out tentative mists here and there? Don't I occasionally appear to other people as a ridiculous shape of thoughts without my intending to? Don't I drift toward the north when I feel the breezes of love and the warmth of compassion? If clouds are beings, and beings are clouds, are we not all well advised to drift, to feel the wind tucking us in here and plucking us out there? Are we such rock-hard bodily lumps as we imagine? Drift, let me. Sing to the sky, will I. One in many, are we. Let us breathe the breeze and find therein our roots in the spirit. I close the curtain now, feeling broader, fresher. The act is over. Applause is sweeping through the trees. |
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8-Word Basket
(Original 8-word observations)
If you know what love is, you don't.
Let there be three birds in the bush.
For deepest meditation, nothing is necessary--very necessary.
Butterflies around a puddle don't quote any scriptures.
Most of the time you aren't getting killed.
The past is a compromise between innumerable futures.
Don't fight who's right or wrong who's wrong.
Anyone who likes to compliment finds ready listeners.
Bliss without having suffered is a mental confection.
Doubt fueled by compassion resembles faith without pretense.
The last word is never the last word.
Grief cooks a nourishing oatmeal for the soul.
Whatever you can no longer bear, you do.
Suicides can create absences stronger than many presences.
Fear of death is the mother of law.
Indignation that is righteous is usually your own.
Bosses struggle for years to rise into contempt.
Getting fired means you'll never be the CEO.
Gossip is as despised as it is necessary.
Two agree; three harmonize; six acquiesce; twelve stew.
Waking up is going to sleep from sleeping.
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