The Pure Mind
The pure mind contains within it all the civilizations of the earth and all its periods of development. The ‘sky’ of mind overarches everything physical, from the deepest ocean to the highest mountain-top. This is something a poet can feel – but he has to align himself with his most exalted Muse to know it in truth. The body – and in particular the brain – is just the merest shell of a housing for this mind. Life on earth is a wearisome delight which death can’t deny. Its basic condition is the interplay between higher mind and stages of development: the seven ages of man. Thus life is at one and the same time a playground of innocence and a gruelling field of experience. Death can’t take this away because the higher mind is fully committed to these phases: it takes an equal interest in the baby in its cot and the old person on their death-bed. This fact is highlighted by the extraordinary planetary dances of the stars and constellations: there is delight and despair, numbing contraction and noble expansion in their movements. But the stars are still physical – if you step into the counterspace of mind you find their cycles inextricably linked with everything that takes place in human life, without exception.
My bed on earth is made by the stars and the level fields. The world affords me home but in my mind I’m called back to the deep that housed me when no word had yet been said. My words can be world-makers too, knowing as they do where stars were born – where fields were once unlevelled in the blue and faces that I wear had not been worn.
Worn
The world affords me home and there I sleep
with stars and level fields to make my bed;
but in my mind I’m called back to the deep
that housed me when no word had yet been said.
And so my words are world-makers too,
knowing as they do where stars were born,
where fields were once unlevelled in the blue,
and faces that I wear had not been worn.
Speak
And though my body ties me to what’s made,
my mind can hear its own pure crystal tones
sounding out before those stones were laid
which are the paving for my flesh and bones.
So light and air have little of the sky
which truth commands above the highest peak,
and neither mountain-top nor crag can try
to scale those thoughts which only mind can speak.
Best wishes, today,
Landar
© landar 2011. All rights reserved
