What I learned I'm Learning
March 30, 1995
Life teaches you what it is.
To go with time and let it carry you
forward (always)
To absorb events
Let them pass through you
let yourself pass through them.
We learn from the unknown
not from the known
There is a different sort of gravity
that pulls us toward formlessness
in constant materialization
of our true knowing
(for what you know of the unknowable
is truly what you know)
IT is eternal flux
the stillness flowing all about us
and moving us
within it.
I suffer when I struggle
beat my wings in vain
make the stillness sing my name
attempt to fill it, move it
to my imperial designs
Life the simplest feeling
Love the simplest company
Immortality a way of being in the world
untrapped in matter
just passing through
My world was a wall
I wished to conquer
a massif of German geometry
In its very center lay
a forbidden, inscrutable City
I laid it siege
and was vanquished
again and again
Weakened, I revised tactics
but the Force could not be stormed
I wept in my despair
reflected for
centuries of sorrow
Many years later
I realize the 'wall' isn't really there!
It's an energy grid birthed by space
just as I am!
I have but one advantage:
to be malleable for myself
my vision can become dynamic
There are things in the world
that levitate
then vanish
then reappear
the unexpected
whose bizarreness is coherent
in a playful
sometimes silly continuum
as savage and placid
and fertile as the ocean
There's a vibrant thrumming
a background singing you may suddenly sense
in your moments
of thrall
and clear-seeing surrender
When you begin sometimes
to feel so light
for the briefest of seconds
when your
thoughts fly
and the dark
ceases to frighten
Know then you have begun
the journey to your heaven
The Power
E. Medina
Nothing remains
or stands still
Not the days, the places,
the faces I smile at
or kiss
Not the thoughts,
pages,
streets I walk over,
money I spend
But yes the faith,
affection
of those I truly love
those who care for me
and are ever there to share
all the above
Happiness grows with time
and doesn’t care
if we will ever die
or lose our way
It is the rudder
that never lies
or breaks
it is the sail
that lifts us up
above the reef
For a truer north
cannot be found
than joy within your heart
your essence’s
sacred ground
Though what is the path
toward the real, the true,
the loved?
When in this time it seems
none such is left
Humanity nothing but a shade,
a myth, a dream
Of all wisdom, pity, love
bereft?
Where to go,
toward whom,
how and when?
I will venture an answer,
but here’s the catch:
My response and yours
will never match
It’s not a word or words,
it’s not a sound
It is your true self
deep within.
It is your soul --
if you have got one.
When you were young
and if you are young still
If you’ve lost hope and failed
in your most
cherished dreams
If you are old
and ready to be born again
If you are weak and fearful
yet seize the second’s courage
and walk the plank
You may yet plumb the Power
buried, hid within
You may yet once again
be as a child
unformed, unspoiled,
pristine
You may pick up the swords
and turn them into plows
and shine the light of Life
upon the world
from your warm hands
and brow
But learn the difference ‘twixt
the simple world without
and your vast
Worlds
within
Look behind you
at the threshold
the timorous profane
can never cross
Listen: the codes you share
with your own people
are to their ears
a noisome dross
Do not believe
you are degraded
for never having wished
to gain their prize
And ever keep
this thought most present:
Yours is another path;
hence must you go elsewhere
to other worlds you fly
Whereas they stay,
stand rooted to the spot
of their buried pirates’ treasure
or as statues of salt.
Thus far below and back
they shall remain
Their freedom
having chosen thus
To stay behind
in what is past and done
with what is dead, over, gone.
They cannot see
the treasure that you seek
though neither can you see it
But yes you sense, feel it
It is more real to you
than gold or diamonds
More precious than worldly wealth
and the pleasures, privilege it gets
So they think you mad,
unfortunate
for you are chosen by
a destiny
that opens such a trove only
to you
and others like you,
so chosen.
And they hate what they can never have
what they can’t destroy, coerce, defeat
they are hostile to you
you are a changeling.
And they are ruled by fear,
of worldly loss
by pain
by death
by nothingness
triumphant
But you chose
to be ruled
by Life
and guided by
the Power.
San Rafael, California
30 December 2002
Of
an Evening
30 October 2018
E. Medina
Wax and wane
days weeks whoosh by
I am seasons
a door ajar
Last year’s grass cut
soon overgrown
my young cats
here a decade old
Birdsong evening blooms
incense wafts
Oropel
by and by
a figurehead quaffed
You feel expectant
you know not why
velvet flower
rippling sighs
Tabby fur
warms my shin
a shroud of mist
a dream-fed stream
Will let the morrow
bring me Spring!
Transgressor
May 2001
E. Medina
In a world
where the silent
are presumed strong
the mute sage
the blind loyal
Where silence means
nothing is happening
…nothing that must not be
Where only what is allowed
is named,
pronounced and stated
for approving nods
What shall I do
with my voice
brain
heart?
If I cannot sing
my understanding
state my doubt
declare my certainty
divine your name?
In an era of cripples
where all is a forward rush
pathetic, sinister pretense
of the All Important
and Unquestionable
What shall I do
if my heart knows
my brain keens:
they lie
they’re faking!
Their world is insane
I am besieged, surrounded
the only escape
my mind
my world of dreams
Where I am content
to be misunderstood
to serenade the deaf
receive the scourge
and erase the wounds
Run the gauntlet
laughing merrily
Impervious to the blows
Be a poem
in repayment of the taunt
and insult
But on no account accept
the muzzle
wear the blinders
trot, kneel, march on cue
No.
You will not break me
I cannot be broken
…NOT BY ALL FIVE BILLION OF YOU!
The Day We All Await
20
June 2005
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i suspect
will tiptoe in so quietly
to our amazement
but with fearsome finality
of a raging ocean
storming down
centuries-old walls
thick carpeted with vines and roots
though to our eyes
decrepit and tottering
for so long
yet remained propped up
by great, black, granite monoliths
guarded by mercenaries
but silent billowing waves
will come crashing
implacable
over gleaming
empty shells of skyscrapers
steel beams and plate glass
to split like matchsticks
tear like cellophane
left levelled, ripped,
blasted into billions
of singular atoms
we have witnessed
the prophesies
it will all fall away
...in silence...
after the deafening
terror of strafing
and bombing
suddenly
...the world will go quiet
they will be gone
vanish without a sound
just as millions
quietly
exhaled their souls
in the killing fields
their bombast will die down
as the waves come
to bear them noiselessly away
they will be gone
all trace of them blown north,
east, west,
south
less visible than
the finest brownian dust
yes
she will dawn
the day we all await
when what seemed immutable
impregnable
brutally eternal
the golden-roofed necropolis
above us
crowded
with teeming wealthy dead
will become mythic
as Atlantis
the grandiose prideful will fall
with a crash so resounding
so final
but only we shall hear
and lifting our heads
cease our laborious digging
clamber up to the surface
emerge from these rabbit holes
where our dreams are safely hid
like great bears in hibernation
it will be so strange
to greet this feeling
of return to life
after an age of
entombment.
the wave
will have swept away the debris
she will not even leave
any bodies to rot
the earth will greet us
pristine
our true self
will fly out
to enfold us
in her arms
what took you so long?
we will both burst into tears
of joy joy joy
so intense
we’ll need a nice, long
Lie Down
Finished 17 April 2025
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