Cease, what still not best

As tears wept for love and passion

Or is it merely blind infatuation?

A love lifelong confined

But if e’er their love entwined

Would not drudgery of the cycle

Turn fantasy to fractured debacle

Realize in each the soiled stink …

Spoilt curds of their drink

What was thought wine –

In spectacular aged kind

Only found rotten filthy brine?

And all a life lay wasted

Discovered of the last: all time hastened

And all those years run past?

What is any desire but longing enjoined in hope

That what’s held beyond one’s grope

Bears greater unimagined bliss

And heaven and earth turned by the kiss

And when gave be just lips and tongue

Not much more moved than when undone?

Then hands reach and bodies combine

To sap the nourishment of life from th’other

What gained, what enrichment I pray?

Is thee satisfied, full, complete and still?

Nay “still” but in its depth, there the truth: still … not best

And there in lies unrest

Such with the smell of every blossom

And livelihood: advancing our ambition

Each would give (we deceive ourselves) what pleased

It is to heavens’ God to our souls release …

Both now and forevermore

Simply know every o’er craving implore

Us to look to Heaven’s door

And cease vain dreams e’ermore

Sui Juris, Beholden But to One

Sui Juris, Beholden But to One

I beg an hour of mind sui juris,

An eagle hovering in the breezes

Beholden to no one,

No one, no one at all but God

When others applaud, appreciate

The eager works I narrate

It’s then an artist’s complex encumbers me near crippling

An engagement not, no not of God

And then I curl myself,

Wishing I were a little trinket on a shelf

Hoping no one notices, no one admires me

Simply let me be a child, a child of God

And brooding eyes seek Him

Mull o’er His word; tuck in my chin

I remember I am of vast universe a little thing

But a thing loved, loved by God

And finding my Lord’s presence vicinal

Let all fly swiftly to Him administer

Each expectation, every praised successive feat

Let all my works only boast of love, love for my God

Rachel Beach

Monday, February 12, 2007

Stranded in Marrakech

I'm afraid I'm stuck in Marrakech

But with local I admit I've been blessed

It could have been M'Hamid or Tingdad

Or another particular douar unsaid

Why, you ask, am I sitting here?

Well therein is a tale to hear

The taxi drivers and buses

Are worried and all making fusses

About a new government policy

Regard: driving-accident injuries

Let's say your bus, as along it flies

Accidentally hits someone who dies

Off to jail you go

For five years whole

And 50 million dirhams' your fee

Which you'll be paying for eternity

So that's the new policy rumor

That has made traveling a blunder

For every tourist walks the streets

With miserable, tired defeat

And stare down at their feet

Wishing for comfortable sneaks

Because fancy heals don't cut it, I say

When "no taxis" means walking all day

Thus settling in we all are

Since one simply can't travel far

Rather wander through blossoming parks

And get lost in Jma Alfna's larks

Bound upstairs

I want naught but to write

But write I do not

Abstractions stumbling through my mind

There’s much I’d rather leave behind

...

...

Impossible: all upstairs is in a bind

Fathom, nay spasms

I’ve been warned I’ll not remain detached,

Rather in me something a lot like love will hatch

There’s in me a fear o’r the aforementioned unwelcome, Love – its very name

Joined with a man to me is strange

The hope of immortal bliss

Of unending mirth and happiness

Is oddly hard to fathom

My memory recalls only emotional spasms

Kerfuffled Faeries

Dashes of notes

Tempting teasing little totes

Flit hither and thither

Prancing through my mind

No solid thought

Could scarce be found aloft

As dancing faeries

Ne’er sure their whereabouts

(Just a scurrying kerfuffle)

And any single production

Tempted to perform itself

Merely mocked before the theater of
My mind is e’en filled

Thus it returns score and playbill

And with apologetic bow accedes,

Turns and quickly flees

Borrowed flames

True beauty dwells on high; ours is a flame
But borrow'd thence to light us thither.

The Forerunners, George Herbert