The Shy Beauty of Revelation

Somewhere Rumi
still gazes
into the eyes of Shams…
 
Their vision arises
from a timeless shore
where the shells
 
That encapsulate
each separate soul
have fallen away. 

Shakyamuni 
and Hallaj are
resting here too 

Beneath the World Tree
which, like God 
is ever branching 

Into a spaciousness
that lies everywhere
and nowhere in particular.

Here are treasure ships
that have dropped their cargo,
empty vessels
that remain unmoving…

For they have sunk
their anchors
to the very bottom
of this world. 

As might we
when fully present
and absorbed in eternity 

--Free from the cultural clock
the getting ahead,
the falling behind… 

Our longing
for what is infinite
yet immanent 

Must burn through
the foggy 
trance states of culture 

—our celebrity culture—

For revelation is shy,
an autonomous beauty
barely whispering 

And only to those
like herself
who have grown 

More and more empty
of any need
to be known