Clues

In the wearing of rock by water,
We see both precision and randomness;

In art, we see both painstaking exactitude
And impassioned improvisation.

Within structures, we play;
Within rules, we challenge order.

All this is done
Because it is how
All was made,

How we were conceived,
How love is kindled,

How the Earth revolves,
How the Sun rises:

Never the same Sun,
And yet always the Sun we know.

And so the message to you is:
Remake each day

As a revived and elevated image
Of the First Day;

Make tomorrow a heightened expression
Of what you had hoped for this afternoon.

And so, rung by rung
Along Jacob's ladder

You will rise with the Angels
Toward the most perfect

Of imperfections:
A life of meaning.

--Mr. Gobley

Years

Who knew you would be blessed in this way?

Years were wound up like spools of silk;
You raised children
Watched friends suffer
And a brother die;
The world was an angry fool,
And you suffered it
With a joke, a cigarette,
A poem.

Days passed in their thousands
And on you went,
Given time to ponder the miracle
Of your eventual, silent passing --

But not today. Today there is more to know,
And still the thirst for knowing it.

You, who have known a length of days,
Wake now with wonder
That a new day can reveal
Its unique sameness

And that life's unkindnesses
All hold these kindnesses within:

Consciousness,
And
Gratitude
For the parade of heartbeats
Marching happily
Onward.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of Rejection

i thank you, says my small i, for confirming my worst and most deeply cherished fears about this thing i call my "self".

i appreciate your validation of my lack of worth. After all, there is no "I" to be valued.

It is precisely here that i fix my concentration: on the story i tell myself about why i have been rejected.

The insanity of it, the injustice, the demeaning and depressing heaviness of it, melt under scrutiny.

Leaving only the i, which also vanishes.

Had i sought validation from you and found it, my delusions of grandeur would have been fertilized, only to grow like beanstalks out of the fertile ground of my desires.

But as it is, you have let me know in no uncertain terms that my worth, whatever it may be, is not mine, and is not yours.

This is a gift of inestimable value.

i will take this gift with me to my grave.

Not as a burden, but as a seed of wisdom, a bolt of en-lightning, which in an instant can revive my gratitude for life, and relieve me from believing, as we all sometimes do, that i must be more than i am.

In the meantime, it will help me sleep better.

--Mr. Gobley

Revelation from a Stopped Watch

What was urgent
Has become trivial;

What was compacted
Into cubes of time

Has elongated into
Ellipses . . .

The Sun moves in imperceptible increments,
And, without my watch,

So does my day:

One task sliding into, elliding with
The next,

Moving without
Seeming to move,

Until at last, at the very end,
The sun and i

Can be seen sinking
Beneath our horizons,

Possessed of the silent fervor
Of the psalmist . . .

--Mr. Gobley

The Eve of Letting Go

This is the Eve of Letting Go.
This is that evening
When the Sun carves
A line in the sky,
Like the line that appears on a
Pregnant woman's belly,
Heralding a momentous event,
A life-changing life.

This is the evening of rest and restoration,
Of magnanimity and meaning,
Of holiness and wholeness.

This is the time when all is forgiven,
When love is made
And hurts are healed:
This is a shard of paradise
Dropped in our cupped and blistered palms.

This is the Eve of Letting Go:
All is released, all is restored,
And for this nano-now,
All is healed and revealed.

--Mr. Gobley

The Voice Within, The Voice Beyond

This morning, as the bird sang through me,
i regretted my place inside a cube of drywall,
but rejoiced at my place in this world,
where birds move music through us

And songs resonate in the cavities
Of our cares

i realized that when i am tired of singing
it is because i am not letting myself be sung

and when i am feeling wronged
it is because i resist the waters of compassion
which in time will set me aright.

Life in this world lives through us.
Love in this world is a current;
We, conductors.

Your sacred task
in this inch of Universe is

To Be
And
To Permit:

To let life live through you,
The Divine sing from beyond you
And reside within you.

To let yourself be an instrument,
You must, as thanks for being made,
Give yourself
Into the hands
Of the Maker of Music.

Your sacred tune will sing through you
And you will know the blessing
Known by all birds:

That the singer must be sung
In order for there
To be song.

--Mr. Gobley

All Is Said and Done

We travel on a thin wire
Suspended between two columns
Concealed from us:

The Column of Beginning,
From which we begin our journey;
And the Column of Ending,
From which we transfer to the next.

All is suspension and movement.

As we travel this transom,
We are buffeted by the winds
Of All That Is Said and Done:

The rush of Napoleon's charge
And the rustle and snap
Of laundry hung out
On a balcony in
Sardinia;

The ice-fisherman's heater
As he sits on the frozen crust
Of the Boundary Waters;
And the lunch
Of the yak herdsman
On the steppes,
All dissolve slowly
Into waves of will

That now and always
Change what comes after.

All our aspiration
And ambition
Are expressed
In Doing
And Saying,

And it all reverberates,
Between the Columns,
Forever.

So speak and act
With the care and deliberation
Of a nurse on the night watch:

Lives --
Most especially yours,
Now and hereafter --
Will be saved.

--Mr. Gobley

The Importance of Snow

We are snow --

We do not last forever,
No two are alike,
Yes, yes, i know all that --

But also:

It is made to fall,
And it falls.

It may rise up,
But only for an instant,
And only as a reminder,
A delicious delay
In its sealed fate;

It does not map its destiny,
Ponder its options,
Bemoan its passage
Or seek counseling for its fall.

It has a collective identity
And a single
Mind,

But it is a dance
Of infinite steps,
A monotony
Of dizzying variety.

It is fun for those
Who are not busy;

It is water,
Suspended.

It just is.

And then it is not.

--Mr. Gobley

The New Office

Now, instead of woods and a pond,
There is a pebbled parapet
Outside my window,
And beyond it, a parking lot,
Vast and forbidding
As the Sahara,

Herring-boned with parking spaces,
Dotted with duck poop.

In other words,
The view is no longer sacred:
It is merely perfect.

From here -- the second floor --
i can see people
Put on their game faces,
Put up their cell phones.

From here, i see
Life being lived
At that thin threshold
Between dreams and duties,

A forgotten sliver of time
Wedged between facades;

It is all so terribly mundane,
So routine --

So brimming with the required:

A Mobius Strip,
An unending miracle
Such as few
Are privileged to behold.

--Mr. Gobley

Shut Up, Open Up

The Sun attains its lofty arc,
Its rays regain their focus;
The soil, a rich and roasted dark,
Uncloaks its hoard of crocus.

As life gets free of Winter and
Runs riot all about us,
We slowly come to understand
How all goes on without us.

A spinning orb, a burning star,
Whose finely tuned relations
Entrap us in a Mason jar
Of constant undulations,

And bids us boldly to believe
A message oft unheeded:
To blossom, open and receive
The nourishment that's needed.

Open, then: lay bare your heart;
Let all receive its giving.
Extend yourself, and stand apart
From the dead and almost-living.

And yet, remember how life moves,
How Nature's law's applied:
When something's closed, that surely proves
It also opens wide.

Then close, and let your silence yield
A refuge for your brother:
For silence is the only field
In which to meet The Other.

Open here, and there contract
Your soul's own tidal flow;
Just as opposites attract,
So your energy must go.

The poem's done, and all i've said
Does no more than suffice;
So now that I've played out my thread,
i'll take my own advice.

--Mr. Gobley

Benediction for a Grumpy Waitress

The coffee sloshes over the rim,
A black tongue of recrimination
Lashing you for your smile.

Your attempts at congeniality are rebuffed.

You -- with your indecisiveness,
Your picayune requests,
Your spilt Splenda --
Is there anything you don't complicate
Or desecrate?

Must you take so long?
Ask so many questions?
Try to be so damned cheerful?

When her back is turned,
Wave your fork in a circle,
Toward the level of her heart,
And silently say:

"With food you nourish me,
With pain you revive me.
As you serve, so may you be sustained.
As you nourish, so may you be renewed."

You will see her spine straighten
And her demeanor change.

Just to be sure,
Leave a tip large enough
To confound.

And as you leave,
Know that you will have
Saved one small corner
Of the Universe,

Sending its bright arrow of blessing
Forward
Into the heart
Of an otherwise unforgiving
Day.

--Mr. Gobley

On the Loneliness We All Feel

The loneliness we all feel,
The terrible low moan behind the scrim of our weekday mind,
Is the vastness of Space pressing in on us.

It is the indifferent howling of solar winds
And the crunch of crustaceans
In the black hold of the deepest seabed.

On the bitter mountaintops
Of distant stars,
Some part of us is keening.

And here, as we daily struggle,
We hear that keening and feel
The fear just behind our thoughts
And we think,

"i am so lonely.
If i could just find . . ."

Know that what you are looking for
Is another part of your self,
Carved off,
Risen up,
Left as a husk;

A shattered vessel
That held the beginnings of you
Ageless eons ago.

As you make your way back,
You will see your earthly loneliness
As a little thing --
A mood, a memento,

A little shard under your nail,

Reminding you that the Greater Self
Also is feeling your absence.

Tugging at you. Calling you back.

Do not be afraid. In time, you will go,
And the call will have been answered.
This troubled nap,
This brief war
We call life
Will seem to you

A statement of boundless love
From the Self
To the smallest part
And all
Of you.

Know this now,
And let the loneliness
Leach from your bones
And rise to the sky,
Where all of us
In every moment,
Even the last,
Rise
To meet
And know
And rejoice.

--Mr. Gobley

A Blessing for Daylight Savings

Maker of Time,
Architect of All:

One hour more,
One hour less:

We ebb and flow through the seasons,
Sliding the disk of our days
Beneath the brief lens of life,
Peering close
To see the molecules
Of our desire.

Our game is to imagine
That we have in our hands
The vessels of life
And the measures of meaning,

To quietly share the joy
(And the fear)
Of moving nanosections of Time
Into different orbits
Above the few moments
You have bestowed.

For this, let there be a blessing:
Let that blessing be
One more hour for us all,
One more shaft of daylight
To shore up our souls,

One more canticle of praise
Sung beneath the slowing Sun
Of Your faithful love.

Warm us by this, only for another hour,
And we will be warmed by your
Mighty fire,
World without end,

Amen.

--Mr. Gobley

i can't

Don't try to cheer me up, OK?, she said?

Don't give me lots of positive affirmations about how I can do this because I can't. I feel I can't and I know I can't, and nothing you say can change my mind.

I know my strengths and weaknesses, she said. I know my limitations. Why should I bash my head against a wall? There are lots of easier ways to get a headache.

i said to her:

You can't imagine the thousand little victories that come from trying. You can't foresee what might come of the effort. Something inside you is burning to do this; otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

i disagree, i said, with whoever said failure is not an option. Failure is always an option; it's part of life's curriculum. We imagine it to be far worse than it is. Take it from me; i know.

I know what'll happen, she said. I'll try and fail, and it'll suck. And then you'll try to make some great lesson or some meaningful experience out of it, and it'll just suck.

Will it suck forever?, i said.

No, she said. It'll just suck.

And when it's done sucking . . . ?

She sighed and looked out the window. Then she looked back at me.

Then I'll just get on with it, she said.

Welcome to the human race, i said. Where we all hurt, and just get on with it.

OK, I'll try, she said. But I'll be really pissed at you if I screw up.

Screwing up is different than failing, i said. You won't screw up. As for failure: who can say? i never mind failing, as long as there's still at least one meal to look forward to that day.

We put on our coats and went to our prospective wars.

--Mr. Gobley

To The Cardinal That Sang As i Shoveled Snow

Dearest Winged Choir of One:

Your song has saved me --
Plucked me from a sea of gray and white,
Plunged me into the color
Of the coming of Spring.

i saw you not,
But your song saw me,
And heralded a blossoming
In my bones --
Promised that,
As you have returned,
So will my blood run again

Toward hope and healing,
Through arteries of ardor,
Flowing into the warmth
That is so mercifully
Ours.

Let us fly:
You toward the barns
And the bridges
Of our vast, frozen interior;
Me, to one more sanctified season

Of the impossible:
Green grass,
Blue hills,
Life's passion:

The blessing of breath.

--Mr. Gobley

A Fisherman's Prayer

Dear Maker of All Things Mortal:

Even as i seek sustenance
From an element
Of which i am made
But in which
i cannot dwell,

So You seek sustenance
From us, Your molecules,
Your emissaries to
Imperfect Life,

Your missives to
The Moment.

Please guide me in the ways
Of Your goodness,
So that, in being fed,
i might also feed You.

Help me to be grateful
For all that is given;
Let me spare what i do not need.

Let me extend the
Great Chain of Being,
Borrowing only a little,
Only briefly,
From Your fluid forge.

Let me live on the water
And return again to solid ground,
Where i will gratefully
Pledge to You
All that is Yours;

All molecules of being
That You have momentarily
Made mine
Will swim upstream again
To the headwaters of Your
Creation,
There to be made new.

--Mr. Gobley

Meditation on a Yellow Light

O brief beacon, goddess of transition:

Smile upon me as i speed
On my way, i know not where.

Remember to bless and to forgive,
As i promise to thank you
With a wink in my rearview mirror.

i further promise,
With my whole, hurried heart,
That next time, i will slow,
Stop,
Genuflect,
Breathe:

It is you, not those above or below,
In whom all time reposes,
By whom all grace is given,
Through whom all who mindlessly rush
Either make their appointments
Or meet their Maker.

To you i send solemn thanks,
Toward you my prayer does rush
With rapid pulse measured on dials;
A thin slice of the day is all that is granted you,
And from it, you fashion worlds.

i thank you for the small moment
That opens onto the rest of my brief life,
And leave a trail of blessings behind me,
Scattered and rustling beneath
Your
Narrow
Universe.

--Mr. Gobley

On the Joy of Being Cold

This must have been what it felt like
To fall from the stars:

i was a one-celled organism
with an ice-cream headache

a goosebump hurtling through space
soothed and smoothed
only by friction
with the atmosphere.

And now
billions of years later
a megalopolis of molecules
i walk into the heartless wind
and i laugh.

And my laughter-fog
freezes into a cloud
and the wind
punches me in the nose

an icicle begins to form on my tonsils
and my eyeballs feel like
hard-boiled eggs.

Some ancient inner atom
knows this cold as home
recognizes this astral blast

as its origin
its resting place
the reminder
of the long journey
it has traveled
and the promise of
a loving
if tomb-like
embrace --

The rest of me, however,
Is just cold.

--Mr. Gobley

Ode to Barbaro

Whoever said only man had free will,
Fierce spirit --
A soul --

Never met a quadruped,
Nor knew the awesome privilege
Of seeing you run
And later walk

With a gait more proud
For being awkward,
More alive
For having been so close
To death.

If only we loved life
As completely as did you,
Colt courageous,
We would in gratitude
Weep for our every moment
As with wounded souls
We cry
Silently
Over your last.

We hear most clearly
The voices of those who do not speak:
They present to us no options
But to understand,
No intentions but the clearest,
No desires but the purest,
Direct from God,
Unsullied by fear and treachery.

We understand ourselves better
Because you wanted so much to live,
Worked so hard to win,
Then to simply be:
We see our narrow lives
In the vast expanse
Of your desire to exist,
And we regret our timid desires
And our arthritic crabbing
After another afternoon nap.

There is more room for us now,
But a soul has gone out from us,
And we feel unworthy of,
Unwelcome in the space.

Gallop on: all is healed.
To the paddock: all is done.

Lead us by your memory
Toward faithful, unflinching love,
By your example
Toward real living.

--Mr. Gobley

Meditation on Anger

i come to you, heart on fire, and beg you to heal me.

My anger is nothing more than pain and fear, and nothing less than love betrayed.

Do i hold this anger in my heart? It feels, rather, that the anger is holding me.

Please help me to release its grip, and to place patience in its stead -- the patience of a smooth rock in a frozen stream. Then i will know that, as it has for millions of years, the stream will release me and flow over me again.

You who made us in love sent us forth in anger. We are the inheritors of your ire. Teach me to forgive as you have forgiven. Teach me to be present as you ever have been. And give me the patience of that lonely rock that knows the solitude of this season, and that knows its prison will surely melt away.

--Mr. Gobley