Poems that point to Infinite Beauty (The Book of Infinite Beauty being the too ambitious previous title of this collection), which is only Allah, al-Jamal, Who created everything out of love in a balance of Beauty and Majesty, two attributes sometimes clearly manifest, sometimes at odds with each other, as seen by our clouded human perceptions. But behind every event and every creation, is that Infinite One, and the quicksilver pool is our total existence here, which, to focus more intensely, we might give a shake (our selves), to see God’s Face in the things we see…
Poem Selection from Shaking the Quicksilver Pool
I’m More Concerned
I’m more concerned
I’m more concerned he said
of how these next few years
these next few years will affect the small and
perishable things that dare to poke their
poke their heads up through the
permafrost that confronts us all that
confronts the big and small as we
battle against the very inertia that drowned
the unconcerned of Noah’s time of the very old
time of Noah who very
successfully unsuccessfully built the
boat but failed to save his
people who were too busy being unimaginative though all
though all the signs were there for them
to see
the small and brave of us as well as the
big and strong
facing the wall of water
the mile-high wall of water that’s just now on the
brink of cresting and rushing down with all its
absolutely every ounce of its impact wondering what
hit us
as if the earth itself were raised like a
wrecking ball and swung against itself
shattering the continents and splashing the
seas into space like a dog shaking itself
like a dog bounding onto the shore from a cascading
rush of water and
shaking itself dry
When the saint reached his goal
only a chipmunk took notice
all that light pouring out of his room like a
private aurora borealis just for
Him
and scampered home to tell his wife and kids
for a split second the universe stood still from its
usual flipping back and forth from
existence to non-existence and took a quick
look at itself in the mirror of wonder and wondered
if all its lakes would evaporate all its
peaks eventually crumble all its
tombs keep their tenants cozy until time to
unfold like a magnolia bud into flower
then it was back to business as usual and ten-times
greater radius of illumination around his head
which later worker ants took notice of and
passed along the grapevine
waterfall water cascading at its usual
pleasure babies getting born in sterile
hospitals at their usual rate
while like a newborn deer our saint ecstatically
stumbling in fields of God’s glory like so many
sparks from a campfire meeting at the
pinnacle of night or the transformation from a
large top-heavy and earthbound thing to something
suddenly aerial and gliding
free
our friend gravity becoming here now the
dance master of the spirit’s freedom from it
our saint’s happy stuttering across a very
anti-gravitational threshold in order to
appear to us perfectly normal
saying perfecting normal things such as
those are roses those are thorns
the night on its double axel turns
the forward depends on the backward to define its place
our life is a split-second of joy before light descends
