Ya Quddus, Kadosh, Kodesh

 

 

Holiness seeps in quietly

And soaks through every cell

Until there is nothing  left

but peace.

 

It has found me

WIthout warning 

In the midst of morning run

When a fragrant tree of  spring

The calling of a bird, 

Migrating in the air of every breath

Opened the flow of universe

Through doors of birth and death.

 

It has found me wandering 

In forests wet and green

When the patch of moss laid bare

under a curve of log

sent up its gentle scent.

 

It has awed me in those places

I least expect its grace.

In the midst of some cathedral

Built on dogma and distess

In the arches soaring upward

 We imagine flight

Where by some simple curvature 

of time and space

The vibrations of so many hearts

 Transform boundaries into light.

 

It has settled on me 

In the home

Of those women I have known

Whose every breath 

Has come directly

Through their beating hearts

In the  touch of hand on head

Cradled in a lap.

 

Yet it eludes me!

I forget it

When It is here in every moment

I wait to find it somewhere else

In memory or anticipation

In travel and in pilgrimage

Where the confluence of 

Time’s rivers 

In unending transmigration

Have left some silt of love. 

 

I seek it

Anywhere but here 

Where it nestles

Gently, present yet unknown

Its strength like  waves 

of  warm sweet breath

Of hibernating bears 

in caves.