Dove, crow and thrush assemble with hawk and owl
In Tree of Shimmering Leaf- and preach to the dull;

All the fishes of muddy lake, river, ocean and sea
Rise up, and gasp their desperate cry for purity:

“Francis taught the praise of our gifted Creator.
His heart was alive with Love, and is our Savior.”

“But you sleep like stone locked in self-embrace.
Wake up and sing to receive the Master’s grace!”

“Nature longs for the naked song of the pure lover,
Who has surrendered all shame and needs no cover.”

Darvish heard wolf, bird and fish sing such verse;
He sobs in grief that Adam labors on under a curse.

The Perfect Master reveals the Maha Yoga of you go-
The perfect actor conceals himself during the show.

When the I, at last, starts to disappear from the Mind
The Ego whines in protest that it is going blind.

God save us from the bogus Guru, whose real talent
Is to magnify me and mine into the truly repugnant.

When stone eyes sunken in sockets transmute into dust,
The heart surrenders to diamond song of radiant trust.

Life’s desires burn like a match to briefly flame and die.
Our only hope is like a candle to long with love and cry.

When Darvish’s tears freeze as they drip down his face,
The fire of longing will come to an end without a trace.

The grace of the Perfect Master is the gift of surrender
Of all interminable melodrama to love pure and tender.

The will to power of corporate and military greed
Has poisoned the people with cruel and false needs.

Big Fist occupies the throne with the beast by his side,
In whose solicitous snarling he eagerly confides:

“We are the greatest nation in the history of man-
All countries must pay tribute to our place in God’s Plan.”

Hubris, the ancients say, is the most deadly of sins,
And the only one the gods insist can’t be forgiven.

Rome must burn again and again to prove the truth,
That power and greed self-destruct without reproof.

Darvish gives thanks for fresh bread and a glass of wine.
The cruel marketing of thuggery he gratefully declines.

Only the Saint remembers the dull pain of sleeping stone-
The world snarls and gnashes over raw and bloody bone.

By grace of His glance, and millions of hungry lives,
The Soul leaves the beast-cage and at man-form arrives.

Now he snarls but mostly whines with articulate speech;
He walks on two legs and with vanity begins to preach.

O the pride of Man as he imagines that he now can think,
When he has only just realized that his turd in fact stinks.

Now begins the long journey of grinding Mind back to dust,
And of submitting to God as Beauty in rapt, loving trust.

Darvish has fallen in love with the Master of Masters,
Whose divine sense of humor transfigures all disaster.

The dark clamor of unlived desire chokes my throat,
And twists and subverts song of pure and golden note.

I lean and loaf by bubbling spring and envy observes
How water caresses stone, earth and grass with verve.

The frozen past that melts in the present to reveal fate,
Is only altered by the fire of love that destroys hate.

Where my love and where the days lost in her hair-
Tears blind me to all except rich and black despair!

This dance in which the lost partner can’t be found,
Makes me whirl to a timeless beat round and round.

Darvish breathes the Friend’s name with each breath,
And courts the lovely grace of the Mind’s blesséd death.

Tabasco helps.

I would drown at once the sound of my own thought-
I would die now and forever to all that can be taught.

The ocean wave rises, threatens and then crashes.
Spirit brightens as rolling water softly caresses.

All truth is revealed in the pure and virgin sand,
Washed clean of all mark left by unnatural hand.

I read the scattered omens of shell, wood and stone:
Only by the songbird’s cry can this blame be undone.

My grief shapes slowly into verse that disappears
Along the curving ocean shore of bitter tears.

Darvish walks and walks to find the lost silence
That reveals again the beloved Master’s presence.

Line in italics by Francis Brabazon

Giddi-up donkey, through the wind and rain and snow.
A wondrous Christ-child’s cry yearns to grace bestow!

The wandering Stars combine luminous astral virtues
To mirror the Ancient One’s holy radiant nature.

All the doors that close in Joseph and Mary’s face
Lead to the Manger for Nature’s open embrace.

The Magi come bearing gifts for the King of Kings,
Whose beauty is the glory that inspires men to sing.

Christ is the promise that releases prayer in the heart,
By which Darvish is free from the tyranny of thought.

Giddi-up donkey, through the wind and rain and snow:
The heavens weep in joy for Man and Earth below!

line in italics by Robert Rouse.