MYSTICAL POEMS BY NIGHTINGALE

INTRODUCTION

* Great God! When the stream of utterance reached this stage, We beheld, and lo! The sweet savours of God were being wafted from day-spring of Revelation, and the morning breeze was blowing out of the Sheba of the Eternal. Its tidings rejoiced anew the heart, and imparted immeasurable gladness to the soul. It made all things new, and brought unnumbered and inestimable gifts from the unknowable Friend. The robe of human praise can never hope to match Its noble stature, and its shining figure the mantle of utterance can never fit. Without word it unfolds the inner mysteries, and without speech it reveals the secrets of the divine sayings. It teaches lamentation and moaning to the nightingales warbling upon the bough of remoteness and bereavement, instructs them in the art of love's ways, and shows them the secret of heart-surrender.

Baha'u'llah

NIGHTINGALES

And here am I, in this remote forest
At the foot of the Cascades,
And I sing for Him,
Songs from my heart,
At night....
Always at night.
The moon, the stars,
And deep silence are my companions,
And I warble upon the bough of remoteness
By the river in this great forest...
But I am never really alone.
He is always near.
And when I finish one song,
He sings to me in the silence,
And another song is given....
Always a song of love,
Sometimes joyous and delightful,
Sometimes of sadness and suffering,
But always a song of love.
So these songs are my poems,
And I offer them to you with a surrendered and
loving heart.

PERFUMES OF ARABIA

I am your small footstool my Beloved
Praying for the presence of two little feet
So piteously broken and tormented
And gazing now upon them
A torrent of tears springs forth
Sharing that pain, that anguish
I have brought a silver basin
Filled with warm attar of roses
In which to bathe them...
Sweet balms, delicate unguents
Silken fingers to apply them
Aromatics of fine healing virtue
Yet, as I so gently soothe
His poor dear feet
Within my heart I clearly see
That all the sweet perfumes
Of the gardens of Arabia
Could not remove the foul
Malodorous stench from Persia
Of such a heinous monstrous deed.

Baha'u'llah was exiled and incarcerated for forty years of His life. During this time he was also tortured in various ways, one of the most painful torments included beating the feet until they were broken and bleeding. On pilgrimage, in a mansion outside of Baghdad, in a room He had once tenanted, I saw a pair of little slippers which had been slit at each side to accommodate His poor broken feet. Those slippers have haunted me to this day.

LITTLE YELLOW SHOES

On the hard worn surface
Of this ancient street
Suddenly a soft brightness
Like two dead birds
Lying scattered as they fell....
Just two little shoes.
She has slipped them off
To run after butterflies
Or to chase the white kitten
She saw running in the grass.
No! such a terror stricken
Abandonment cries mutely
She is a tender morsel now
Served on the banquet table
Of an insatiable monster
Who consumes all.....
Without pity
Without conscience
Leaving only a pool of blood
Near small remnants of
Shattered bright innocence.
Two soft little shoes
Just lying there, so still,
So quietly.......abandoned
In this cold, darkening,
Starkly deserted street.

BROKEN WINGED BIRD

Oh, such an immensity !
And what shall I do now ?
How can I know the intention
Of that which holds me
In warm soft vastness here ?
Ah, if I were not so terrified
Of being crushed or thrown away
Possibly I could delight
In all this gentle soothing tenderness
I can no longer fly
Only be
         still
               so still
                           so very very still
Hoping that whatever holds me
Somewhere, somehow has a heart
That cares for one
                  small        
      wounded    bro        ke
                   fallen                n
                            creature.

FACE OF THE BELOVED

Ah, captive in darkness
Have you not yet seen
Behind the mask
Of passionate desire?
There all is illusion
A shadow of death...
Always the betrayal
The disillusionment
Cries of the heart
Tears of sadness
A hurtling into blackest despair
Again
And again
And again
Until...
Pain mercifully tears open
A single astonishing eye
Clearly discerning
Beyond all of love's
Myriad masks and veils
There awaits...
In silent patience...
The stunning, radiant face
Of only one Beloved.

THE WARRIOR

Whatever barriers you erect
I will try to scale them
And when you fling those arrows
I can feel your pain
If this frightens you
It terrifies me too
Yet, and still, I love you
From the deep and sweetest wellsprings
Of my torn and tattered heart.

VISION

A true vision is as an arrow
Flying straight to the heart of reality
A false vision is an illusion
Leading only to chaos and confusion
Warrior's challenge is to discern the difference
Then to follow his true vision
Even if it should lead him away
From all that he knows
Even to the ends of the earth...
Or beyond

DARKEST NIGHT

One dove flew off the branch
To her Beloved
Leaving her lover bereft,
Abysmally alone
Oh blackest most grievous night!
The moon has drowned herself in sorrow
Swallowing all the stars, the light.
Rain falls
Thunder roars
Lightning flashes!
Hits the branch
Zig
Zagging off...piercing a living heart!
Shattered
Helpless
Dying in his beloved
He falls off the branch
And follows her into eternity.

THOUSAND WHITE DOVES

A thousand white doves
Flew into my heart
Shattering it all asunder
Brilliant white light
Terrible piercing tenderness
Thousands of pure white wings
Fluttering
Fluttering
Fluttering

THE SILENT ICONOCLAST

Oh wretched
Religious hierarchies
Political powers
Earthly dominions
Did you think these dank
dark walls of Akka
could imprison this glorious Sun?
Forced into jailed locked silence
Words flow from the Pen of Glory
flying forth across vast oceans
into the courts of Kings and Rulers
reverberating in the deep silence
of human hearts until...
A fire is ignited
Bright and Roaring
and Blazing enough
to burn away the black root cause
of our terror, pain, and discontent.
Oh Blessed
Divine Physician
Lord of Utterance
Beloved Silent Iconoclast

THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND

I awoke
To see this radiant light
Shining forth above the darkness
And ran to seek my brother
Wandering alone and lost
In an ancient forest.
The sun is shining from
The holy mountain.....
It is a new day!
I cried.
He turned toward me
With dark and empty eyes
That mountain is
Desolate and barren
And nightingales
Don't sing to roses
Except in Wilde tales, perhaps
It is night!
Listen, owls are hooting
Just feel the cold rain falling...
Enough of these delusions!
Leave me now
Go back to sleep.

THE MOTH

Fluttering about on silent wings
Dancing with fireflies
And silver moonbeams
Until a golden light
Caught in dark jewelled eyes.
Don't go into that strange
New light little moth
It is truly a blazing fire
It will singe your soft
Velvet wings, little moth
It will set you wildly,
Yes terribly ablaze!
Great owl blinked old
Round eyes at the moon.
Little creature of the night
Stay with the familiar,
Your magical friends
O the moon
The moon
The cool, the luminous,
The beauteous, the moon!
Sang the owl.
Dear owl, the sun
Is calling me...
He sings the most
Wondrous songs
My cold heart has melted
In His radiant warmth
To Him I joyfully fly!
O the Sun!
The Son!
The enchanting,
The radiant,
The most glorious!..
O the Sun!
She cried.

THE MYSTICAL ALCHEMIST

I see him clearly now
Baha'u'llah's mystical alchemist
Solve et Coagula
Attracting the hearts of men
As moths fly to a blazing match
In a dark and lonely night
So a heart flies into the crucible
Of his open and radiant heart...
And consumed in His mighty flame
Is cleansed of dark secrets
And passions
Until only essence
And ash remain.
See how lovingly he sweeps
Up the dead ash
Presents Him with the
Now glowing essence
Then begins all over, again
And again and again
And how does one human
Heart survive
The blazing torment
Of this process?
And is there a way
To ease this pain?
Ah, if there is a balm
For his broken heart
It must be quickly found
And gently, oh so gently, applied.

A SUN IN MY HEART

There is a sun in my heart
My beloved hung it there
In these interior skies
While I was soft asleep
Dreaming of His nearness
And as golden rays fan out
Illumining the unknown darkness
An enchanted garden begins to grow
Where only a haunted barrenness once reigned.
Nightingales are singing now to roses
And wherever He wanders about
In little broken slippers
The sweetest dearest and most fragrant
Blossoms begin to bloom.

FALL OF THE TOWERS

One silver bird, shimmering in the sun
Crashed into a titanic sky obstacle
Instantly a bursting forth of fire
Unimaginable scorching flaming hell!
Blinded by terror some flew
Out of tower windows
Into graves; they had no wings
One more attack and twin towers
Collapsed into an avalanche
Of concrete and steel
Suddenly a mountain
In the midst of the city...
An immense coffin for some
A terrible dark prison for others
Trapped...their piteous cries flew
Out to touch and shatter
The hearts of our world.
O my America!
Gigantic crucible for all
The races, all the nations
Seek only Justice!
This is a crime, not a war!
And from the smoldering red ashes
Of our greed, our disillusionment
Awaken!
Arise as a Phoenix
Glorious and Strong and Free
Soar then on golden wings
Into the spiritual realms
Showering forth from our Creator
Brotherhood and Equality
And Justice for all.

BUTTERING CRACKERS

Oh my darling
Here you sit in the candlelight
Silver hair cascading
Busy buttering your little crackers
And in the softly luminous glow
Shines a rosy divine child.....
Then I secretly, silently know
Why God loves you so.

MIRROR OF ADORATION

You can walk all over me anytime
Wipe your feet on me,
Use me to scrape the mud
Off your boots
On your way
To His Threshold

Oh, did you hear the wild cry
Of a shattered heart
As you sent me hurtling
To your dear muddy feet
Dissolving into puddles
Bewildered
Helpless
Stunned
Into adoration before
This Sovereign Beauty
Who inspires
Selfless
Loving
Devotion
Such as this

BEYOND ILLUSION

Sometimes I look at all the people and
Countries, planets, galaxies and universes
Expanding and contracting
Birthing and dying
And it seems I am a nothing
Just a tiny moth in darkness
Madly searching for the light.

And sometimes strange synchronicities
Happen...too many...unbelievable!
Then I know that my reality is
Only a flimsy painted curtain
Oh, to find a hidden corner
Of this divisive veil
Look behind it and see
Who or What is turning all the wheels.

And sometimes it seems that
Just you and I are here, God
But an odd fear haunts me that
Someday, sometime I may awaken
To discover I'm only a dream
And you, my Beloved, the Dreamer
All and Everything You
You and YOU, alone.........

WINDOWS OF PERCEPTION

Dashing against the window
Robin hurls herself again and again
Fighting an invisible barrier
An obstacle she cannot tolerate
Flying from freedom into
Strange enclosure, should she succeed.
My beloved is as this wild Spring bird
Where others see untethered madness
She perceives utmost lucid clarity
Off now on a solitary flight
All she once held as dear and precious
Flung swiftly off, abandoned
Free now to crash into windows
Leaving me as an impediment
Far far off...way down below.
Oh fly with God, wild bright spirit!
Bird of my heart, fly, fly with God!

WAIF

Abandoned, Rejected, Unloved
Cast out from darkness
Into a cold cruel world
Haunted by visions of Mother...
Warm loving arms
Soft pillowing breasts
Sweet flowing milk.
Waif wanders about
Bedraggled, unwashed, dejected
Wounded by taunts, jeers, hoots
Shrill laughter, pointing fingers
Whispers in the air
Ever behind her back
Now and then a spark
Of warmth and kindness
Blooming like a candle
In a darkened room
Waif rushes in and finds...
Oh cruel illusion!
Not a refuge but a pernicious web.
With horror she perceives herself
A winged creature caught, trembling
As spider comes with glittering eyes
To spin his silken thread
And the silk he spins is his pain
A snare....
Tightly to bind unto him
Her blindly compassionate
Ferociously ravaged...still
Wildly beating
Heart

IF A STONE HAD TEARS

Clutching a stone from the dust
In a withered claw of a hand
Sensing only darkness and shadow
In the presence of a glorious dawn
This poor blind gibbering creature
Tried to put out the Sun as He passed.
Guards rushed forward to restrain
That cacophony of shrill raucous cries
And the Sun spoke to them...
He said :
"Deny her not
What she regards
As a meritorious act
In the sight of God." *
Oh, dear beloveds
If that stone had tears
There would have been a river
Wide and deep and torrential enough
To wash away all the stones
Hurled throughout time
At the Sun
Light of the Worlds
When He appeared
Arrayed in new attire...
That Beauty of God
Amongst us

TEARS OF THE MARTYRS

Winter.....
The keening chilling cry
Of a solitary Eagle pierces
The frost bound lofty air
And the mountain responds...
Tears from a hidden spring
Begin to softly flow
Only the forest knows this
And watches in evergreen silence.
Spring....
Torrents cascade down, drenching
Huge stones in Tahireh Cove
Glistening, dancing, murmuring, tearing
Into the river gorge far, far below.
Tiny white flowers begin to bloom
Beneath lacy sheltering fronds
Of delicate maidenhair ferns.
Summer....
Sparkling, dew-kissed, sumptuous
A bridal bouquet adorns the cove
Nurtured, freshened by the Waterfall's
Surging, murmuring, splashing lullabies
Dear one,,,let us hope the martyrs
When they went to join their Beloved
Had just such an exquisite bouquet
As gentle and sweetly innocent
As their pure yet ravished hearts.
Fall...
The glorious Autumnal Sun
Has dried up all the tears...silence.
No more splashing, dancing or cascading
Tiny white flowers go softly to sleep
And the ancient river flows on
Peacefully murmuring far, far below.

MAKU

High in remote mountain fastness
        Dark night is falling
Down in the small village
The Mosque is warm and full of light
A myriad candles illumine and shine
Brightly flickering on golden walls
The faithful chant and pray to Him
Whom they have fearfully locked away.
        Dark night is falling
And ever looming on frozen heights
The stark black fortress of Maku

Within deep caverns in a hewn rock cell
He lies in chains and fetters bound
        Dark night has fallen
Small furry creatures are freezing, dying
And He has no coat, no warmth, no light
Abandoned in frozen silent isolation
To the pitiless cold of this black night
Without a single lamp.