I used to think love
blossomed in an edgy brilliance
like those thistle flowers
too prickly to touch
and then surely eaten
by night rabbits.
But then the Beloved
took my hand
and flew me into a hurricane
the cool blooming
chaos of my dreams.
All my worst fears swirled there
in the black-cloud underbelly
leaping to life any time
my attention landed on them.
As I faced each
with unblinking lioness eyes,
the images softened to but hazy reveries
from some life
I could hardly recall.
A new identity came to be:
a self within,
so like that rescue-dog,
who never for one moment
pauses in her wagging-tail devotion.
And so I learned that love
is not some here and gone state.
It does not tightrope
along the barbed-wire,
but instead curls itself
around the fencepost
and nestles in
with the moonflowers.
What an epic poem!!! Your vulnerability and universal truth about love catches my breath.
Love you
Kelley, what a lovely response! Thank you for grasping this poem and seeing into its meaning. Love you too!
This is a beauty! It resonates with such meaningful imagery and great promise. I plan to share it with a group of friends at lunch today. Thank you and many blessings.
Stephani, thank you for the encouragement, and for sharing the poem! In this one, I was playing with words and images more than usual, so I’m happy the meaning still came through. <3
You are making it more and more difficult to choose a favorite! I love the imagery and depth of the messages, and I agree with everyone who has previously commented. This is just superb!
Thank you, Rudy. I’m happy you enjoyed it! It was a joy to write with the Master.
Thank you for this Lesley. So many beautiful images. I love the hurricane swirling with your worst fears, and how you face them so courageously with your lioness eyes. And the rescue dog, unstinting in her devotion. I like the sense of journey. It’s inspiring how comforting, sure and constant, the image of what love truly is….yet shows the travails we are taken through to truly realise this. Thank you!
Thank you, Chole. I love the way you “translated” this poem. It makes me happy to know that the meaning comes through. Learning to listen to the Beloved, as you know, is an ongoing process.
As usual dear friend, your devotion for The Beloved comes through with an arrow soaked in His Love.
I can see you’ve been working in the Divine Cafe, getting high on the sublime aroma from the finest beans in the cosmos, so much so that the your giving the cafe a new and fresh name.
Continue on spinning in that dance you do so well, the breeze coming from the axis is sending along seeds to wanting soil!
So much Love dear friend…see you in class…:-) <3
Thank you, Logan, for your lovely comment wrapped in a poem! The love just flows through you with pure beauty.
Best poem EVER!!!?❤?
Your writing keeps evolving into greater expressions of the Master’s essence. What a beautiful gift, Lesley, and that you share it with us. We are all so blessed. ?
Many years ago after just joining the MP I parked my car at a grocery store. I noticed in the adjacent car to my right the driver and his medium sized dog. He petted the dog on the head, said a few loving words to it and then left the car for the store. I was just about to do the same when the dog went Fed-Ex in the car. It moaned, whined and wailed with a sound I cannot forget. It ran from window to window as if its pain of separation would kill it. I witnessed pure yearning and intense longing to have its Master back, once again. It could not stand to be separated from him! I sat and watched and listened, gobsmacked. I wish I had a recording of the dog’s plaintive cries to play for you! Those wails drilled into my own heart with a diamond bit! Stupefied, I watched and listened for about 5 minutes. The dog was in sheer agony at being separated from its master. Then I left for the store’s entrance, with the anguished yelps and painful cries continuing until I walked inside.
Then it hit me…the revelation which is just as poignant to me today: If I really, really desire to merge with the Highest Lord and return to my original Source, that dog unabashedly showed me what I would need to become internally – a fanatic and crazed love dog for God, but silently and without show. That precious animal showed me what love for one’s Master and Lord is, as well as the acute pain of being separated.
“Listen to the moan of a dog for its Master. That whining is the connection.” – RUMI
I believe we all harbor that same silent whining internally and with even more pure intensity than the dog. We ignore or mask our deepest yearnings with loads of frivolous activities and desires, but that innate longing is still there…waiting to be recognized and utilized.
Thanks, Lesley King!
Wow, Al, what a powerful story! And I must say, I’ve always seen that deep, impassioned yearning in you. It’s so true that we all carry that. Daily I watch my mind reach for this and that, the most ridiculously frivolous things, and when I catch it, I redirect it to the Master and immediately feel that love that I seek. We have a tremendous gift in that redirection. Thank God.
Oh Lesley, so very important to have the “Friend” to “Go To” whenever we stray and fall for the innumerable enticements in the environment. It is said that the Friend forgives our failures before we ask for forgiveness! Thanks for your honesty. The mind seeks material pleasures…Soul seeks only its Beloved.