Do I know who I will cross with? Whoever it is has gone along life’s way with me. He or she is my making, my completion. The road shines behind us, the cool water’s breath rises up. Who do I seek union with? My self, my eternal partner, my lover? On the other bank of the river the ground will welcome our feet, its green light deep and untroubled.

Take my hand and we will cross, our human stories twined in fairytale. There has been loss and distress, parting and sorrow. There has been the magical light of a faraway flower which holds our image. Who will I cross with? Who am I alone for? The crossing of the bridge is one part of the union. The far shore is another. What is un-separateness? Do we have a right to seek the unified? Must we not place hands on that diamond, cross and link arms together, understand that the bridge only comes from our own being?

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© Landar 2012. All rights reserved

You are welcome to quote from Light on the Page on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar

Source: www.lightonthepage.com

For other permissions please contact the author.

The poet must carve a path out of the world’s stone that leads up to the word of God. And this without knowing whether his words have the fine engraved edges of words in a monument or the movement you see in the travelling stars or opening flowers. In a child’s first footsteps. How much we don’t know! The world is the scope of our ignorance. Life in the world is a magnifying lens which focuses my ignorance into speech.

My door into the dark is carved in stone, like the eastern door in a great cathedral, inset with row after row of fantastical carvings. It’s the door of ignorance and knowing. My feet take me there, having passed through wonder and the praise of wonder. I am required to be the light.

But neither is this the word of God. Is it the passage in or the passage out? Only if speech says so. Is it the achievement of feet, standing, walking, from infancy to old age? But I’ve walked into the dark since my light was first sparked from earth’s heavenly beginning. So far beyond the keenly engraved boundaries of this life!

The laughter is a memorial too, carved in life’s eternal present. Those letters are pleasing to contemplate. Why, the world is itself a monument, with names of the fallen on its million faces.

I don’t wish to be merely mystical or poetic-sounding. There is a fine focus to these words. A fine engraving, a carving, leading up to the word of God. But it lies in the magnification of ignorance, the pattern of speech, the regulation of feet. These wonders, these songs of praise, let me be the light as I go, through the door of each day, into the dark.

To go into the dark and be light

is my qualified belief. Qualified

by the achievement of feet – their feat

in bringing me this far, from the first urge

to walk, up to the realization

that I’ve walked into the dark since my light

was sparked from earth’s heavenly beginning.

And the entrance is my eastern door,

cathedral-carved from dark’s quiescent stone.

The laughter is a memorial too,

carved in life’s eternal present – letters

considered in pleasing contemplation.

Wider skies than this I can’t conceive.

The world is itself a monument

with names of the fallen on its million faces.

I know this, remembering while I know

that love will carve its name into my stone.

Wonder is there in the travelling stars,

in the opening flower, in the infant’s

first steps. But this is not the word of God,

only His eyes widening in delight.

The word is growth in growth and not that too -

it is praise and the wonderment of praise,

it is the full scope of my ignorance

magnified by the world’s lens into speech.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© Landar 2012. All rights reserved.

Image: Pythagoras from Chartres Cathedral

You are welcome to quote from Light on the Page on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar

Source: www.lightonthepage.com

For other permissions please contact the author.

My shadow, meanwhile, is bundled up inside me like a lonely cloud rolled up with many others to form a single thick covering overhead. I long for the clarification of sunlight to let my shadow stand proud of me. But I know too that I have to draw my shadow out, to pull it into the light. If it appears too soon will it have found release? Or will it be forced to retreat again into its undistinguished cover?

I don’t know what this shadow is. It represents the degree to which I have clarified myself. I am not fit to stand under a new sun unless I have expelled this blackness. It is the darkness of the year, the cold, the unloved, the hurting side of me. It is the side which must crave its own excess until it can bear it no longer. I love my shadow and my shadow pretends to love me. But really it sings its song for the lost sunlight it remembers like a dim dream. It holds its candle for that light.

I’ll make myself clear by living out of the light. I’ll shun the early growth and wait for the full tide of spring. I’ll talk to my shadow, creep into its lair, tease it out from its own concealed shape. We’ll become friends, my shadow and I. I’ll tell it stories of life under the sun, of creatures that fly, of leaves that light like candles. I’ll promise not to leave its side. At last, in trust and faith that day will come when I can lead my shadow out from me, into the open silence, the cloudless light. And then I will know I have arrived.

Dear

Yes, hearth, light, song – these things have moved away;

disgruntled skies pour answers on the earth

to questions no one asked or thought to say:

do we grow old for nothing? has life worth?

I would stay buried, hibernating deep,

unless I thought my shadow could appear

above the ground, and stay and feel life leap -

but still I’d need to know what makes it dear.

Shape

And so I’ll have to play a pointless game

of hunt the shadow, looking everywhere

for what I’m not, to give me proof my name

is written underneath the sunlight’s glare.

But all the time the clouds pour scorn on mine

and other searchers’ hunt for what they are;

elusive as a tangent or a sine,

the perfect shape of life, now near, now far.

Waltz

And still today my shadow is a cloud

rolling within me, never free to roam;

but if its black shape one day should stand proud

I’ll know that light has touched my shell-like home.

My cold existence hankers for the sun

not least to prove my outline is not false;

yet I am still a work just half-begun:

some day my self and shadow-self might waltz.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© Landar 2012. All rights reserved

You are welcome to quote from Light on the Page on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar

Source: www.lightonthepage.com

For other permissions please contact the author.

A sifting wind. Feelings

adrift in the night.

Great storms shift

in their sleep.

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

The uncompromising need for humanity – that is the theme that the final week before Christmas sets before us. We want to be loved and understood; we want someone to take our hand and lead us through the dark, unpredictable world history has bequeathed us. Why me? Why now? Why should I go through this? I’m just a traveller in time who has landed here – I have no special gift to bring; I can’t heal the world.

What a strange thing to be a time traveller. That’s what we are. We set the dial, spun the wheels and arrived here. In the whole history of time we are just people who chanced – or chose – to be here. And the world is cruel, untidy, pitiless. Alas! Who is going to sort it out for us? Jesus Christ?

I’m parodying the mindset of the world today. Yes, truly people are suffering and caught in the cogs of time. But the cogs are human created and can be human solved. Why should we call out for a supernatural being to come to our aid and take all our sufferings on his shoulders? Be careful what you wish for – the supernatural being may not be the one you think he is.

Whose humanity is called for? Someone else’s? A divine being’s? Every tear that falls becomes a torrent in front of you; every unkindness a cutting forest; cold thoughts are a moonless night; a lack of charity is a winter without cheer. Not one more step can I take on my own path unless I dry the tear, awaken kindness, warm the thoughts. The torrent will turn back in itself, the forest open, the bright moon shine its light ahead. What chance do I have then of continuing? The chance that saves the world, that lets me out here at this point in history. The path is not for me alone – it is for any holy family which chances to be coming this way.

Face

But all I have left in me is a heart,

as mind and limbs are chafed away by time;

yet stars flow in and lift it, till apart

from world it rises to its higher clime.

Not there alone but sheltered in the grace

which lived before the world was made a thought;

so coming down again I see the face

who smiles on the heart I saved and brought.

Torrent

A tear becomes a torrent in front of me;

an unkindness a cutting forest;

cold thoughts a moonless night;

no charity, a winter without cheer.

What use is faith except to scatter clouds?

What worth have words unless they clear the thorns?

Not one more step can I take for myself

unless my path is fit for the holy

family who might chance to come this way.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

You are welcome to quote from Light on the Page on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar

Source: www.lightonthepage.com

For other permissions please contact the author.

As the year grows darker – and, by analogy, life grows darker – it’s natural to look in unexpected places for meaning and hope. As I mentioned before, the low angle of the sun’s rays highlights corners and edges of things which normally remain hidden – for example, crystals in tiny caves and openings. By analogy, in life itself there are lines of force visible at this time to those who look. Passing on from the mineral to the plant world, you can’t help but feel that nature withdraws into itself to its deepest point in order to let the inner meaning of its existence shine out: the flower which is the essence of its being. What is most concealed is most radiant. And again, by analogy, you look for the truest, deepest image of life in yourself. Then – perhaps with a little trepidation – you move on from the mineral and plant worlds to that of the animals. What does the darkest time of year mean for them?  At this point we’re talking about sentient creation – awareness, consciousness which tingles with life but which is not notably self-conscious or self-aware. The senses therefore lead the way. Animals in the dark and cold will look for shelter, for warmth, for nourishment and – more importantly – they will instinctively look for the guiding wisdom of the world to provide them with what they need. Our human senses and instincts then, by analogy, form a line like the animals and move towards the source of replenishment. Our consciousness does not even play a part in this – the instincts have a wisdom of their own.

The human being will finally arrive – the fourth of the kingdoms. There is no human analogy for this kingdom – it is its own analogy. The structure of life, the flower of life, the instinct of life and – finally – the Self of life. These are the four stages which are traditionally represented in the four weeks of Advent or – in pagan terms – the month leading up to the rebirth of Light at the midwinter festival, and which play themselves out as if in a great dream.

Sanctum

All my senses rush up to the spring

where light arrives in silence of the night;

and there they quench their thirst like waiting beasts

which spent their lives in acting out their role.

Thus sight and hearing, touch and taste and smell,

with all the other senses tucked inside,

have leaped ahead, and now my sloping form

is last to reach the sanctum, tired and slow.

Animals

Perceptions wait outside, while hungry senses

race ahead to fill themselves with pure

sensation needing neither thought nor comprehension

to bask in light’s first source and know its name.

Then when the senses are done, the body -

their master and their slave – can sleep, and dream

of times when all the animals were one

in a heavenly garden where blood was never spilt.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

Light is our first-born child and longs to make its home with us while still remaining free. Thus it makes its hearth in each and every living thing but stills its restless urgings through the night. It leaves us our freedom too and walks silently in the darkness so as not to disturb us. So when the embers die down to a glow, it flowers on every bough and honest mind.

This is an image of the path of light which is the being-hood of every living thing. This is light before it has become sentient or self-conscious. It relates to plants and to human beings and animals while they sleep. Light is like the hearth burning low which nevertheless spreads its pattern across everything that lives. We can experience it in dreams and in the deeply withdrawn boughs of the trees in winter. It is like the image of a child coming closer. Only the evergreens stay awake, pure nocturnal creatures. They bend their minds towards the first flowering of life.

Everything in the world is an image of the progression of light. It longs to lay its head on those evergreen boughs and experience with us the stages of growing, flowering and dying. It wants to heal what has fallen from its first pure conception. Do we welcome it – let it in – or present only the bare, frozen surface of our branches? Is nature going to close its doors or remain open to its earthly origins? Nature is ourselves.

Bough

The very dearest sunlight loves to shine

on trunks that have no life or inner zest,

painting them with moss and mould and slow growth

which creep towards the ending of their year.

My world is a thing of patient surfaces

while trees like sleeping giants rest their bones,

and sun alone knows how to count the days

until its head will lay upon the bough.

Thought

The very trees are burning with the cold

as if their life is thinking other thoughts:

disguising warmth in limbs that only freeze,

caring in the midnight for their sun.

And, paupers, we collect their sticks for fire

to warm ourselves before discarded thoughts,

until the greatest thought arrives at dawn

and lets our burning flower upon the tree.

Conception

There is no time when light was not first-born,

craving its home and comforts but still free;

it keeps its hearth in every living thing

but stills its restless urgings through the night.

Then when the embers settle to a glow

and dreams are stirring, roaming in the dark,

it flowers on every bough and honest mind,

the first conception coming down at last.

Best wishes, today,

Landar

© landar 2011. All rights reserved