SOUL MATE

Ahhh.... the ideal. Two solitaries meet, find in each other the completion of union. Two become one. One eighty plus one eighty. Three sixty. Synergy. Love. Ravens accomplish the two in one. They mate forever. Whenever you find one raven you will always find two. Love is recognition. You come across the other in a place of strangers. The recognition is complete, undeniable. It crosses eternities. It transcends the bounds of mortality. This life. The next. The previous. Study the Raven. No possessions. No fixed abode. No complexity. Just the wind. The wind & a perch high in the Limber Pine. Just each other. Simplicity. Completion. I found my other. She & I. One. The recognition is complete. Simple as a tumble in the winter sky. I pray. I pray we come back next time, She & I, I & She.... We... as Ravens.

SENTIENT BEINGS

  A wise man told me once there are three ways to act as a Human Becoming.  I can act for myself. Myself Alone. I can act for us. Me & my woman. Me & my family. Me & my tribe. Me & my country. Me & this hollow, crumbling civilization. Finally I can act for the benefit of all sentient beings.  The Ravens taught me this also. It took me years to realize the World does not belong to Man. Go to the North you will find the North... the true North Strong & Free belongs to the Raven. Just like the surface of the earth belongs to the ants. My body belongs to the trillions of bacteria that occupy it. The mycelia of the mushroom nourishes the entire planet. That is just the beginning. The Ravens of the Arctic Circle taught me I am just one small mystery in The Mystery Itself. When you pray, pray for the benefit of all sentient beings. The Ravens told me so. The Ravens told me so.

SNOW

The Emperor of my country... the Divinity if you will, is Snow. Snow informs every day of my life. Even in the depths of summer on the hottest, muggiest day I recall Snow & how soon it will soon be drifting down out of the grey, grey clouds. Go to the Arctic. There Snow reigns supreme. Snow & the cold. Our toughness as Canadians & I daresay our gentleness comes from our ability to love the Snow. The White Raven is in fact the Snow Raven. The Snow Raven is in fact the Snow God. The Divinity is nothing if not white. Imagine a world that overnight turns white. That is my land. That is where I belong. Snow isolates us in our furs. Walking in the Snow.... it is me in my cloak & the big, wide, white, world. Only in Snow can you see your breath. Snow proves I am alive. Shiveringly Alive! Toques off to the Snow Raven!

RAVENS ON STUNTED BIRCH

Too cold too cold too cold

the air cracks and ticks

with bone emptiness.

Inuvik’s streets are bare.

February’s new sun

pauses north-northwest,

reaches streaks of red

over ridges of stiff snow.

Flagstaffs of smoke rise straight

from lines of rowhouses, painted

the colour of tropical fruit:

mauve mustard emerald.

At the town dump:

twelve ravens,

each atop

a crooked birch.

Smears of tar in a tree,

feathers balled out black,

they wear white bibs

where beak-breath frosts.

Dark as winter lakewater, 

they, at least, stay put.

Twenty four eyes shine jet,

inspect me, curious:

What is this creature 

out here in the cold?

 - Inuvik, NWT

ONE

I separate myself from you. I separate myself from the world. I separate myself from the Divine centre of all that is. I separate myself from myself. When I say I have my Divine Self & there is a Divinity in the Universe I finally approach the meaning. There is no division in Divinity. Oceanic. Indivisible. I go there when I fall asleep. I go there when I die. Hello. I am there wide awake. The great final failing of Science: it pretends the world can be known from a distance. That it can be observed. The lonely monad sitting in his glass tower jotting down notes on his observations... concocting theories & systems. Jot away, oh monad! The tiny idea of division simply gives the offset to the Truth. There is no division. There is Divinity. There is but One. There is One. ONE.

SYMBOL

We are seduced by pattern. We are seduced by the constructs of our own minds. We go to war over the stripes on a flag. We stare at the cracked paint on La Giaconda. Two lines cross at right angles, one short, one long somehow summarize the whole complexity of the Creation. That it is a logo for excruciating torture gets lost in the morass of associations. As a poet, symbols are my metier, my raison d’etre but I know their nature. They fit nicely in the niches of my toolbox. A symbol like the Crucifix has the weight of Uranium. It is too full of meaning. I have experienced spiritual ecstasy. When I am with the Divine there are no symbols. Clear spring water. Empty sky. Thoughtless thoughts. I make my Cross with empty space. I am removing the symbols from the walls of my mind. Ahhhhh.... eggshell white all around.

GNOSTIC

The One who knows does not understand. The One who understands does not know. My obsession with words has always got the best of me. I am always putting my thoughts into pleasant little boxes. I enjoy finding titles. Figuring rhymes and rhythms. Letting the image rule the idea. Call it a poem. Call it a moment. If I had the stamina I would sit in the desert or under the Boddhi tree. Sit at the top of Squaw Butte with no food or water for four days. Just stop thinking. Stop the endless mind chatter. I am empty as the winter sky.  I am speechless. Words fail me.