immortality – Knot to Be Undone

Illusion of Separation

“The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.” – Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali, #12)

I looked through squinted eyes,
and begged to see The Mystery unveiled;
instead, without a word, you lifted me
with loving arms to set me in your lap
behind the wheel.

A primal burst of light
accompanied our launch through time and space,
and in my rattled, addled sense of self
I dreamed that I was traveling alone
without a map.

This lifetime lost among
inhabitants of unfamiliar worlds
obscured the memory of whence I sprang
but couldn’t kill my longing to return
before I die…

’til guided by a star
protruding from the edge of clarity,
I caught an echo of the lullabye
you sing throughout eternity to call
your children home.

2022 Mary Boren
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Steve Jobs Reflects

A digital encyclopedia
finds followers who cling to shifting ground
above the swirl of social media
where fabricated adages abound.

With Morgan Freeman’s name below the quote
or what the Dalai Lama might have said,
a circulating myth could stay afloat
in perpetuity when they are dead.

The final words attributed to Steve
concerning wealth and power don’t ring true
about a man compelled to take his leave
exhausted by disease, without a clue.

In truth, as heaven broke across his brow,
he simply said, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.”

2022 Mary Boren
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Fact check: Final words of Steve Jobs were not about wealth (Reuters)

The Heartbreaking Last Words of Famous People

Circular Curriculum

We only have, on average, the span
of eighty-seven years to mount a quest
for wisdom steeped in life. The lesson plan
is stacked against the odds we’ll pass the test.

For some, the obstacles occur at birth
before the child has drawn a second gasp
and never cease, while others’ inner worth
is nurtured from the gate to final grasp.

But if distracted by the siren call
of fame and fortune, don’t expect to reach
the summit of serenity. The fall
of hubris supersedes us in the breach.

And any course curtailed before it’s done
will be extended for another run.

2021 Mary Boren
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To the Unknown Poets Before Us

“I send my soul through time and space to greet you. You will understand.” -James Elroy Flecker (To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence)

Not driven by the world’s applause
your words were neither praised nor spurned.
You spoke or wrote them down because
the fire within you burned.

From chants to overcome the fears
encroaching on a native camp
to chronicles of current years
your words have held a lamp.

To each of you who heard the call
of feelings that demand release
through ink or etched into a wall,
the echoes never cease.

So whether gathered in renowned
Akashik Records or encased
in ancient caverns underground,
no words have gone to waste.

Millennia may come and go
before or since another surge
renews the link, but we who know
will let our spirits merge.

2021 Mary Boren
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The Universe Resets

Though critical conditions reach a peak
on Saturday and multitudes are troubled,
with only seven midnights in a week
the hope of Sunday morning light is doubled.

The cosmic calendar is not concerned
with momentary intervals between
the folds of time and space. Where planets burned,
an emptiness now occupies the screen.

The rise and fall of empires in the span
of savage centuries is but a page
from one recorded Chronicle of Man,
unnoticed as the sweepers clear the stage.

For when the music strikes another chord,
the balance of Eternity’s restored.

2021 Mary Boren
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Mary Boren 1 · The Universe Resets

Miranda’s Midnight Walk

In a split-level duplex on Denver’s west side
where the gold dust and booze overflowed
from the previous century, someone appeared
at a newlywed couple’s abode.

“Did you see what just happened?” The unison chant
broke the silence as, bolting awake
with adrenalin pumping, they sat up at once
and described an identical take
on the bold basement visitor’s last fading flash
that remains an indelible clip
in this vividly witnessed and oft-replayed film
even fifty years after the trip:

At the headboard, a rustle of taffeta stirs
in the mystical opening scene
as an elegant lady comes slowly in view
from the rear as she glides in between
man and wife unaware that we sleep on the grave
of society superimposed
on a future dimension with tenuous thread,
its connection as yet undisclosed.

Like Miss Kitty, complete with a bustle and hat,
she is dressed to the nines for the day
in a matching plaid number befitting her role
as a fashion plate walking away.

Then she ever-so-gracefully raises her skirt,
stepping down from the foot of the bed,
still not floating but moving with purpose and poise
through the wall of the closet ahead.

2021 Mary Boren
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Cosmic Crossroads

“Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good.” -The Prophecy of Thoth

There will come a time, the ancients said,
when Planet Earth is severed from the Spirit.
As mystics strive to reconnect the thread
with sacred speech, the people will not hear it.

Redemption must go deeper than the words
to overthrow the pattern of stagnation
in human consciousness that undergirds
our currents of decline in co-creation.

For only when the willingness of one
and all anothers unified by reason
to forge ahead together has begun
will heaven manifest its winning season.

And each alone can activate the glue
that binds us to the cosmic retinue.

2020 Mary Boren
View discussion on this poem.

“No I can’t stop that, but I can stop what I’m doing to contribute to it.”

Image Source Neil deGrasse Tyson is silhouetted against the birth of the cosmos – the Big Bang – at the inception of the Cosmic Calendar and its vast 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution.

Oh, My Children

With the power to penetrate
the mystic guise and orchestrate
each mortal decision and consequence
I’d be a god you despise.

But with peace to liberate
all whose acts incarcerate
forgiveness and empathy deep within.
I’d show you how to relax.

And with joy to activate
the spirit’s lust to luminate
the dubious shadow on every face.
I’d be the knowledge you trust.

Boundless love to incarnate
with no intent to violate
respect for your license to co-create
rises on wings of consent.

2020 Mary Boren
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Precious Metals

When I die and my worth is extolled,
it won’t be for the riches I hold
or my saintly deportment,
despite tooth assortment
of porcelain, silver, and gold.

I am being replaced by degrees.
With titanium joints in my knees
and the plate in my wrist,
I should clang when I twist
like a full set of prison guard’s keys.

I’ve got pincers and pins in my toes
for reshaping the elegant pose
of my hooves in their shoes,
and a stash of loose screws
rattles ’round when I’m blowing my nose.

If you’re secretly hatching a plot
to heat a gargantuan pot
and melt me down early,
don’t bother — you surely
won’t get twenty bucks for the lot.

2018 Mary Boren
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Ephemeral

If you remember me when I am gone
with any sense of clarity, ignore
the critic in the shadows who has drawn
impressions from an outline on the floor.

I never fit within the chalky bounds
of others’ expectations. Still, I tried,
until I was awakened to the sounds
of omnipresent promise amplified.

So when you picture me inside your head,
unhampered by the superficial sphere,
behold a ball of energy that shed
the cover humans wear when we are here.

And soon, in less than one eternal minute,
a burst of light will follow. You’ll be in it!

2017 Mary Boren
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Passing Through

“We’re all just walking each other home.” -Ram Dass

We are fashioned of stardust and moonbeams,
with each particle numbered and weighed
in the heart of Creation’s unwavering flow
where the substance of everything’s made.

Then we’re hurtled unborn through the cosmos
to be nurtured and challenged and taught,
with our origin mostly forgotten except
when ethereal whispers are caught.

We experience natural beauty
tinged with sorrow and pain as we burn
with unquenchable passion for clues to explain
our existence. We long to return.

But that glorious lightness of being
in the lap of eternity’s source,
is reserved for escape from the passage of time
with a watchful, benevolent force.

If a tiger jumps out of the jungle,
or a bear charges out of the blue,
or a mugger gives chase down a dark city street,
they’re just doing what animals do.

I will not live in fear for my safety
or let cruelty alter my pace.
There’s a balance in nature that cradles us all
on this rock in the vastness of space.

Whether fluttering, tethered in tandem,
or with feet planted firm in the loam,
I am here with my brothers and sisters for now,
and we’re walking each other back home.

2014 Mary Boren
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The Call of Home

I’d love to travel astrally,
projecting past the sun and moon
into the realm beyond the bounds
of brick and mortar, blood and bone.

When carried on a single thought
aloft, my busy brain would cease
its constant chattering while I
enjoy the panoramic view.

But for the needs of day to day
existence in a mortal shell,
there’s no place I would rather live
than here at home on Planet Earth.

Let not her strength and beauty fade
because we failed to heed her cry.

———

2013 Mary Boren
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Through Time and Space

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.”
James Elroy Flecker’s concluding lines in “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence“

Since I can never see your face
illuminated with the glow
of happiness on seeing mine,
I’ll hold the image as a sign
of ultimate simpatico.
Since I can never see your face
and never shake you by the hand
or wrap you in a warm embrace
this mortal side of paradise,
I’ll hold another human twice
as close to keep the bond in place
and never shake you by the hand.

I send my soul through time and space
on wings of faith that countermand
degrees of gravity. The guise
of distance drops when spirits rise.
Beyond the elemental strand,
I send my soul through time and space
to greet you. You will understand
without a single word — you’ll know
that love has come along to guide
my message from the other side
and circled back through long ago
to greet you. You will understand.

———

2013 Mary Boren
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All is Well

Before the firmament was hung
as backdrop for the galaxies,
the spirit of creation stirred
and murmured, “All is well.”

Behind a white primordial screen,
the painter of the universe
was mixing colors, shades of light,
and smiling. All is well.

Between the oceans’ ebbs and flows,
the peaks and valleys, rocks and grass,
a changeless matrix is revealed
as proof that all is well.

Beyond the fundamental set,
the king of choreography
assigns the species to their marks
with purpose. All is well.

Because the players blink and fade
like stars in love’s connecting ring,
eternity’s a running show.
Forever, all is well.

———

2013 Mary Boren
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The Key

Between the posts of now and yet-to-be
exists an air of utter mystery.
The apprehensive ego speculates
its end occurs when there’s no more of me.

Defiantly, it strives to storm the gates
of heaven, railing hard against the fates,
but on a quiet sea untouched by storms,
the soul knows immortality awaits.

For energy is endless — it transforms
in ways we can’t conceive as essence warms
to universal consciousness. Esprit
arises from Creation’s vapor swarms.

Regardless of the how or why, the key
is living in The Now abundantly.

———

2012 Mary Boren
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To My Soul

My soul, innate divinity —
the spark of God that lives in me,
connecting one with all the universe,
your light can penetrate the veil
and shine where hateful thoughts assail
the finite realm, and easily disperse
the darkness of mortality.

With two or three in easy reach,
you leap to meet yourself in each,
reminding what we didn’t know we knew.
As seat of peace and love and joy,
you magnify the best, deploy
the rest, and fill the spaces through and through
without a single breath of speech.

When ego gains a head of steam
and plots to keep me in the dream
of nothingness, you hold my fear at bay
until the balance is restored.
You are my wings, my rock, my cord;
without you, I would be a chunk of clay
instead of holiness supreme.

———

2010 Mary Boren
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Feather

“Be a feather on the breath of God.” -Hildegard of Bingen

Breathed into being by God’s unbound
imagination,
I am the essence of everything
in all creation,
destined to soar on an eagle’s wing
above the ranges,
gracefully drifting beyond the sound
of seasons’ changes.

I am a thread in the downy quilt,
beside my brothers,
sheltering nestlings from biting cold
when darkness hovers.
Pivotal, temporal tides may fold
but not destroy me,
borne on an aerodynamic lilt
to guide and buoy me.

I am the spirit of east to west
in acquiescence,
trusting the flow of the breeze that fanned
my holy presence.
Once I am given to understand
the art of sailing,
I will return to the place of rest
through God’s inhaling.

———

2006 Mary Boren
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Feathers Don’t Fade

I want to be a feather in the cavalcade of art,
adrift or buffeted by bluster, never losing heart.

A mule can plow a furrow straight
with naught but fallow rows
awaiting fertile harvest while
its droppings decompose.

A school of fish can navigate
impenetrable lines,
but following the current draws
predictable designs.

So whether borne on eagle wings
or molted from a wren,
I’d rather drift aloft than be
attached to hoof or fin.

I want to fall as gently as
a whisper in the mist
delivering a summons with
a finger, not a fist.

Subjected to the elements,
a hammer head will rust —
its wooden handle petrified
of turning into dust.

But quills will still be moving in the metaphoric haze
as lanterns of enlightenment until the end of days.

2014 Mary Boren
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