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Another Afterlife
The sky with all its foam and layers
has shifted from form to waves
of brutal joy.
What cruel bliss to know there is an
ocean of these crackling, blinding
drops of knowing
just a life away.
Another earth was born today
while I watched
and all I had to do was be here
and here was everywhere,
still and decoded and angelic
like a dog that saves its human
every moment of its short life,
and I finally knew it:
There is nowhere to go but here
if love is the journey.
In a world of deeply-etched formulas
and endings and no's
love begins and ends with one word:
yes.
It was in this dismantled and shapeless
Real World,
between cement people carrying time
on their backs
and the endlessness that
yearns for us,
I stumbled into a love
that could crush me,
scatter me
and remake me into
any imaginable, glorious thing.
God breathes and the stars awaken.
One breath and a universe shows up.
In a voice too human
to match the wonder,
but following the current
that leads to the vastness of Now,
I rehearse another afterlife,
I spill like the enshrined passion
of a martyred sky
and I answer
yes.
Patricia Joan Jones
"a universe shows up"
.
heaven-stairs
are a map to glory.
the trick is not
to find illuminated
bliss, rather,
discover and study
star-maps.
.
...a
.
Thank you for those
Thank you for those breathtaking directions to a higher destination. You are a true poet, my friend.
Cosmology, theology, insight,
Cosmology, theology, insight, and an understanding of Love that few people acquire in a whole lifetme. What does this poem not have? Patriciajj's work makes me feel young in two ways: the deep-thrill sense of discovery, which I have not really felt about any poetry since 1980; and an awareness, a reminder, of what I do not know about our Cosmos. Check out these phrases in this poem: "cement people carrying time" "endlessness that / yearns for us" "God breathes and the stars awaken. / One breath and a universe shows up." This is the purest of poetry, the most marvelous of metaphors, insights more profound than any philosophers', and the ability to join words into phrases that are naunced beyond measure. She reminds me most of Wallace Stevens---like him, she is working on an extended epic which will consist of the whole collection of her poems. It may not be epic in classical form, and does not need to be. But it will be epic because her poems are more, in sum, than the number of then: they are individual poems that provide for the existence of one Great Poem, and then share in its existence as well. One can explain the thrill of the stars by learning astronomical mathematics in a classroom, or by stepping outside and watching the stars rise. One can grasp at inadequate words to describe her poems, or one could just go the poems and watch them rise, and watch them describe, and chart the Cosmic perspective.
Starward
Your comment was certainly as
Your comment was certainly as magnificent as any poem. It goes beyond skillful expression, because it sent joy into the life of one wandering, questioning seeker whose grandest desire is to help others find their way back to their Truth. If I accomplished that in any way, as you say I did, then I have fulfilled much of what I feel I'm here for. How can you thank someone for that? Like this:
God bless you, dear friend.
filled with wisdom and
filled with wisdom and insight
ron parrish
That was so encouraging.
That was so encouraging. Thank you!
you`re welcome
you`re welcome
ron parrish
Thank you!
Your reply was poetry in itself. It made my day.
I live in your poetry, just
I live in your poetry, just for a minute - and it’s a blissful minute.
Let your teeth show
Thank you for your eloquent
Thank you for your eloquent comments. Patricia