The thinking person's tree

Its branches arc over the house like the spokes of an umbrella.

Its seedpods clog the gutters in Spring; its leaves shelter the house from
Summer's withering glare.

In Fall, its leaves dance and die; again the gutters cradles --
Not sparks of what might of been, but
Embers of what gloriously, patiently
Was.

Its roots explore the foundation.
Its branches praise the heavens.

In winter, the thinking person's tree
Withdraws into itself,
And the branches appear sclerotic
Against the gray vault
Of Perihelion.

Today, as on all days,
It simply is.
Thrusting down, praising up,

Thick with life,
Always prepared.
Swathed in symbiosis
With my fragile abode
(Whose bones are planed
From fellow trees),

The thinking person's tree
Always waits, but stays present;
Always is rooted
And is always on the move;

Always loves what it shelters,
And gently, unapologetically
Uses
What it loves.

--Mr. Gobley

Done

It is wonderful to be a student again.

Now i remember:

Summer smells of greening promise --

Chlorophyll and melanin --

And the expansion of the soul back into

Something called "life,"

An end to shuffling herds in stairwells

And dark evenings buried in books.

i remember, too, what striving and promise are:

miniatures of the Universe's expansion into self.

i return to my diurnal identity,

a little older

but a little further from death.

--Mr. Gobley

Late Night City Sounds

A sigh, perhaps;
Even a motor
Can sound contemplative

When all that is behind it
Is the susurration
Of a vent shaft
Or the
Plaint
Of an idling bus

All i listen for
Is contained
Within symphonies
Of metal and stone

All i hear
Breathes
Against a quilt of night
And dreams
Of tomorrow's
Exhaust.

--Mr. Gobley

Five O'Clock Somewhere

Quitting time is a small, delightful death.
Cars exhale. People, too.
The sun begins to retire, in this latitude,
From the rigors of forcing Spring
On a frozen hemisphere.

Birds --
Who exclaim, and who hail the morning Sun --
Also fly home, somewhere, when the Sun does;
Wedges of wings turning,
Leaving, arcing and returning,
Vanishing.

At Five O'clock
In March
Where i live,
The monochrome is
Coloring into its gentle death.

At home, there is light.

In my mind,
Which til now hibernated,
A ray of languid light enters the cave.

--Mr. Gobley

Thaw

Blood rediscovers the end of my fingertips,
The tips of my toes.

The bone-ache of deep cold
Is dipped in a shallow, steaming pool
Of promise.

Somewhere, a cardinal sings;
And beyond that,
The sigh of the expressway
Arcs higher into the
Suburban air,
Comes down more gently,
Without icicles shattering
Around it.

The trees point less angrily
At their parent sky,
And people stand taller,
No longer hunching their shoulders
Over their hearts.

Time turns from blade to blossom
In tiny increments,
Like the growing of an eyelash.

And i rejoice in the cloud of breath
That rises from my day,
In gratitude -- and relief --
Toward the day's
Maker.

--Mr. Gobley

the breach

The black whale
That shot from the sea
And thundered back down
Was master of all his universes:

The liquid world could not contain him;

The air rushed to greet him, filling his lungs with new life,
Hurried to sustain his brief flight;

The solid world -- the world of our flesh and feeling --

Utterly transformed by his might.

All I can ask is to live one moment like him;

To briefly launch into that element just beyond my reach;

That benign and yet ominous Other that both inspires and eludes me;

So that my moment of mastery might descend with me again, into the iridescent deep

Where memory and meaning both reside.

-- Mr. Gobley

Old Man on Campus

He moves among the young
Pulled by air currents
Pushed by gestures:
He has the presence
Of cigar smoke
And something of its odor.

He lingers amidst the library stacks
Like Bellow's ghost,
Looking for pages to live in.

He interrogates academic journals,
Demanding that they divulge
What only he can decipher;
Kidnaps orphaned lattes
From the basement coffee shop,
Devours the Science Times
That beckons
Stained and matted
From the counter.

His briefcase, never open,
Bears the same battered manuscript
Over which he labored,
Through which he breathed,
During the years of his
Academic apprenticeship.

When i come close to pitying him,
i look close until i see
The smile of utter solitude
Crease his face:

The bliss of solipsism
Is his;
He is an anchorite
Amidst the young --
A minor god,
Hurling bolts of erudition
Into a sea of ink.

--Mr. Gobley

Early dusk

This is a miracle, too:

How nightfall,
In its heaviness,
Falls as lightly,
As freely,

As day dawns.

How watching reveals nothing
Until it reveals
That all is hidden.

How darkness, through the window,
Reflects oneself back to oneself,
And how daylight at last
Causes the self to vanish.

No light shines on my soul
But that it slowly dims,
No darkness descends upon me
But that its arc swings gently back
Toward redemption.

I breathe, I dream, I slowly die;
And all for this -- and only this -- am I.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of a Woman, Running

No form ever graced the Universe,
No figure ever spoke to the angels
Until yours sped past.

Your feet touched the ground as a sort of compromise;
You moved as if time and gravity were mere concepts,
And bones and ligaments fashioned
Like bow and arrow.

i cannot forget the ease,
Cannot approximate the joy,
Will not understand
The lightness of being

Expressed in your stride,
Until I have died.

--Mr. Gobley

Meditation on a Sunset from Behind a Window

Without biting bugs
And the territorial shrieks of gulls,
This is little more than a flat-screen TV.

And yet:

There is a cricket secreted in the ceiling tiles,
Singing to a newly determined storm;
And there is the semaphore of the rain
On the old roof

To remind me
That i am not alone here,
Not all alone.

i live on an island,
weave dreams on a prairie,
build boxes in the suburbs,

And watch water and sky
rise and fall

Through the great window
of memory.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer for a Sunday Evening

My bones ache from the pleasure
Of wasting time.

And from working in the garden,
And walking into town.

From the sledding hill,
i saw a highway,
A forest,
And a world in no hurry.

On the way home,
i saw two children selling lemonade,
A dog trotting alongside her mistress,
And a father and daughter racing their bikes,
Laughing into the wind..

It was a world without ambition
And without enmity --
A small, fragile universe,
Shielded from itself
By a brief, benevolent window
Of the timeless.

i thank you,
Creator of Time,
For briefly, sweetly,
Making time
Go
Away.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer for a Child Engaged in Sport

You cannot fail.

You live in a
Distilled elixir,
A concoction of hope
And riotous dreams
That causes us
To rise out of our seats
And shout.

O Great Life,
That it should let us drink
Such wonders
As this modest moment!

All your guides,
i first and foremost,
pray that in falling you rise
and in defeat you
overcome,

And that what wounds you suffer
Will scab over like glaciers
And move slowly
To the center of your being,

Where all defeat becomes song
And all sport
Conveys a hint of
The World to Come.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer for When You Do Not Feel Ready

Dear Mover of Stillness:

The rush of time
Makes moments like leaves --

Unfurling slowly, they are suddenly everywhere,
Then, even more suddenly,
Gone.

i fall helplessly behind:
Time has no particles,
Only waves;
No moments,
Only a stream.

Make me like the rock in the stream --
Let me bend the tide to my ceaseless will,
Until i am no more.

Or, perhaps,
Make me like the stream --
Transparent,
Still,
Present;

And yet, for all this,
i know
That You have made me
Both stream and rock,

And in time i will embrace
The flow of Presence
Over the stillness at my center.

Let that time be
Now.

-- Mr. Gobley

What the Garden Said

Thank you for scratching my back,
Tending to my wounds,
Cleansing my pores,
Nourishing my being.

All that remains for you to do
Is to recognize that i smile at you
Each day.

i wait for you to see me --
Essence of me,
Presence of me,
Beingness of me
That reaches toward you
With the whorled and trifoliate,
Tunnels toward you with
The fibrous and adventitious

(All i ask:
Look beyond the rim
Of your morning cup
And see me!),

Keeps becoming
And becoming
And waiting for you to
Gasp in recognition:

i live not next to you
But within you.
We grow
Into
Each other.

The lobilia
And the columbine
Merely add flourishes
To what i constantly proclaim:

i am you.
Smile and reside within me,
And together we will
Reach upwards.

--Mr. Gobley

What Thin Is

Thin is skin.
Skin is thin, thinking ink.

In this, i sink:

i sin, kiss, shit,
hit things;

i sit.

This is it:
It is,
It isn't.

i stink,
sigh,
tisk:
i think, sinking.

It is knit
in skin.

It's high;
it's thin;

it thinks;
it sings.

It is i.

--Mr. Gobley

A meditation on lethargy

My soul has been baked
into a pudding.

i eat, standing over the kitchen sink,
looking out at the back yard,
and wish to remain there all day,
watching rabbit denude the garden
and blossoms sing of their own passing.

At times like this, i wish only to move
as the current of life will move me.

i have no designs
on reaching or grasping:

merely breathing,
and being,
are achievement enough.

Perhaps this isn't lethargy after all:
it may just be the call
of the corpuscles

The wild cry of the nucleotides

The singing of cells
Through the arches
Of tendon,

Morse code
Tapped onto
The wall of my slumbering soul:

Live, live, live . . .

-- Mr. Gobley

Getting Un-Lonely

This time, i mean it:
i will not rely on the mountains
To soothe my soul
Or on music
To provide a soundtrack
For my life,
Or on you
To make me feel worthy.

Suddenly, i find the mountains
to be piles of rocks and weeds,
the music to be merely the earnest
vibrations of the strings and the hopes
and the thirsty egos of the players.

And you:

You have come and gone.
What have you left me with?
Mere mountains;
Mere music.

A thirsty ego;
Nothing to quench the thirst.

Great heaps of nothing;
Vast mirages of beauty
That vanish as soon as
They appear.

If i promise to come to you,
You do not answer.
If i sing to you,
You do not smile.

All i have of you
Is the mountain
And the instrument.

i must climb,
i must play and sing.

And it is only then --
Straining my muscles,
Vibrating the strings --
That you appear to me,
Smiling,
Open,
Here,
And Here --

Being with me.

i am rendered
un-lonely.

--Mr. Gobley

The Blessing of a Beach House

We perched, like ants, on a crust of earth,
On a mound of your making.
We asked, meekly --
"Can we stay for a moment?"

You were kind.

Thousands of turns of the globe,
The gyrations and wobbles of the planet,
Have been made plain to us;
Creatures, and Creation,
Have become our friends.

The plainest messages of time and tide
Have been laid at our feet.
We have grown up in the sun,

Found our way through the bays and inlets
Toward something greater
Than any city street:

Everything is busy being and becoming,
And we, who are so often too busy to notice,
Come here to just be, and to become.

We are pelicans and plovers,
And dolphins and egrets;
We are Germans and locals.

We find that Nature is omnivorous,
And we are omnipresent.
When we are here, even if alone,
We are never lonely.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer of Gratitude for a Mixed Blessing

Dear Maker of Meaning:

Thank you for knowing me so well.
Your gift to me comes with good counsel.

i could not have swallowed my pride
but for this mixed blessing.

It reminds me that i am
loved by you,
neither more nor less
than every snowflake that falls,

And that my brief descent
is but a dance that celebrates
its own frailty
and makes its own brief imprint
on the pavement of the Eternal.

i will meditate on You.

i will see the humility of the mixed blessing
as the greatest of Your many gifts to me,
and i will remember to thank you no less
for what you have taken from me
than for all you have bestowed.

--Mr. Gobley

i accept the terms of service

When i have to click on that little box,
When choosing, or buying,
Or downloading,
Signifying that
"i accept the terms of service,"

i often think:

"How i long, just once, to click that box --
If only in my mind --

When it really means something."

So i will say it now,
For all to read,
For the All to know:



i accept the terms of service.

And now i will serve.


--Mr. Gobley

The Return of My Miniature Zen Garden

Today, it was on my desk again:

The small, square Zen garden,
Three rakes and a brush,
Sugar-white sand laced
With miniature tumbleweeds of
Dust and lint;

The garden had lived for months
In a colleague's cubicle:
While i was gone,
The garden was neglected.

The sand furrowed its brows;
The smooth stones sulked in their
Nests of sand and and gathering dust.

It is home again,
And again, my desk is a desert.
And now i will rake the garden
And pluck the lint from its new rows,
And then

The scratching of the miniature rake
Against bottom of the earthenware tray
Will drown out the silicon hum of the
Hard drive

Will obscure the blinking of the
Message light

Will remand the petty interruptions
Back to their cubed spaces:

Now, i will rake;
Now, i will be folded
Into a small, square universe
Of order and
Harmony.

--Mr. Gobley

What the snowplows leave behind

What the snowplows leave behind
Is gray and leaden.


Pure when peeled, the snow is sullied
By the passage of time and vehicles;
It becomes a sulking armature
Over lampposts and hydrants,
A cream-pie in the face
Of the world.


Then it hardens;
Then it is gone.

The plowed snow
Reminds me of my own
Fevered delusions
And personal melodramas:
Billions of little deceptions,
Grains of fiction,

Become a wall,
Become a shell,
Become water,
Become, in the end,

Nothing.

Just now they are jagged and gray,
But in time, they will flow downstream;

Perhaps someone will drink them
And be nourished.

In the gray of this season,
Impervious,
They seem almost to boast.

Soon enough,
The plow and the salt-spreader
Will cover them over with another layer;

Soon after that, perhaps,
i will remember them fondly
For what they really were:

Billions of little stories,
Waiting patiently to be told.

--Mr. Gobley

Meditation on my Blackberry

You are the fruit
Of a strange and lifeless tree:
My little rectangular heart,
Rear-view mirror of my conscience,
Insomniac engine of my endless days.

You emerge from a seed of wisdom --
The knowledge that we are all connected --
But you are a mutation:
You do not connect us
So much as you ensnare us.
We are alone,
Tied by your tentacles
Into an info-world
Made hollow and blinking and blue.

Priorities without meaning,
Messages without
Content:
These are the gifts you bear.

We bow low to your screen,
Waste our thumbs in obeisance to you,
Call out for connection
But are never fully joined
To those who beckon.

Even so, i thank you:
You always do your best,
You do not complain;
You exist to serve.

You are humility,
Clipped to my waist,
You are community
In a cube.

Like you, i will do my best,
Not complain,
Exist to serve;

And there,
We shall part ways.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer for Yourself

May you remember that each breath you take is the first in a long chain of breaths, stretching down to all those who will be touched by you, loved by you; by those who descend from you, and by those who honor your memory.

May you remember that each breath you take is the last in a long chain of breaths, drawn from ancestors, all the way back to The Very First.

May you honor all these, with each breath.

May you be thirsty.

May you remove a splinter from your thumb.

And peel a grape.

And go an entire day without hearing an engine or an electrical appliance.

May you remember a grievous wrong done to you, and think of something very funny you could have done in response.

May you remember your calling.

May you fall out of bed.

May you make your own ice cream.

And eat it.

And may you hear crickets, and distant thunder, on an evening in August, when you are not in a hurry and the dishes have already been done.

--Mr. Gobley

A 10-gallon fish tank, in the dark

suspended in the invisible,
buoyed in a liquid
that always seeks the most direct route
to the lowest place,

they breathe

kept in a cube,
they sense large creatures,
shards of light,
feel the thud
of our footfall

each morning,
the heavens open,
the light returns with a burst:

mannah!

for now,
they have made their peace
with each other

for now, it is dark,
and they sense both
relief and terror,
and from their fellow travelers,
companionship
and competition

soon it will be light again;
soon, the heavens will erupt
with light, and a shower
of nourishment;

for now, the filter breathes,
and they with it;

and all is quiet,
and still,
and fleeting,
and strange;

all is visible,
but nothing is within reach . . .

--Mr. Gobley

The Drift

The last dusk of the year
Falls in a pointillist's parade.

Each snowflake is a shard of glass
From a shattered universe,
A spark stricken
From the flint of a life.

See that one?
That snowflake has a dust-mote
At its center.

And at the center of that dust-mote
Is a carbon atom

That Shakespeare once exhaled.

All around us, they are falling,
The great and the wicked,

Bound up in the dance of eternity,
Combining with each other
And with us

To make new
The age-old promise
Of life after life,

Of resurrection after death.

One snowflake is a fluke.
One thousand snowflakes are a pattern.
One million snowflakes are a drift.

One snowstorm is a fraction of a moment.

Live this moment with me,
And we shall be blessed.

Happy New Year to you, from--


--Mr. Gobley

When i am cold

When i am cold
i remember the eons
of my pre-existence:

a germ of light
planted at the edge
of the vast womb of
Darkness,

i waited without purpose
and watched without sight.

i can dimly recall
the silence,
the stillness,

the millennia of
not knowing,

And even now
i can summon up
the moment --

the horrifying eternity --
when movement
toward Being began.

When i am cold,
i recall my first passage into warmth:
the horror, the exhilaration
as comprehension dawned,

the mighty struggle
to Become,
even as i yearned
not to Be,

the messiness,
the urgency,
the surging heat.

When i am cold,
i begin to ache for those dark silences --
against my will, to be sure,
and still --

some speck of ash at the center of me
senses the cold,
wants the weightlessness,
embraces the emptiness,
seeks the silence

and welcomes the prospect
of rest
of emptiness
of ceasing the struggle
abandoning the need

to be warmed.

--Mr. Gobley

On Sight Restored

Hosanna in the highest:

The eye is a catacomb of halos.

Within these shining rings lie the secret of all perception:
Brief, shaded, shaped by experience,
Warped by time and by grief:

Restored by heat and light.

The eye is that most miraculous of all organs:
Revealing, receiving,
Fragile, resilient,
Complex,
Unitary:

Milton's window on the soul
Is the Throne of Pure Majesty.

When the world jumps toward you
With renewed clarity,
You are born again

Into aching color and pointillist perfection.

Glory to All That Is:
Light and life have come home to her,

And her insight is now restored
To its outward twin.

--Mr. Gobley

Meditating at Dawn

No shadows

Panes of light
Slide by as cars go round the bend

Have i sat long enough yet?

i hear the toll road
and the filter on the fish tank
and the toilet with the leaky flapper

All sighs and exhalations of coming to be
And passing away
Are borne through me
On the panes of light

Thought sinks

Soul rises

The leaves that shudder
And drift from the trees
Are like the ornaments of selfhood
That fall from my carapace --

And then i hear the thud of heels
On a bedroom floor above me,
And i feel my knees and my back,

And i know,
With no regret,
That the day has begun.

--Mr. Gobley

My Mind is Times Square

Somewhere above 43rd and Broadway
A peregrine falcon nests
On the rim of a roof-top water tank.

The pulmonary power of the Broadway bus
And its subconscious thought,
The Number 3 IRT,
Force movement and
Deliver defibrillation.

None are lost here; none are even lonely.
My mind is like this --
Full of electronics
And loud pictures,

Bright beauties
Larger than life
Colors too vivid for
Real eyes

Schools of people
Swimming uptown
To their jobs.

When i sweep the streets
At first light

i am inviting filth
Praising busy-ness
And sanctifying this
Brief
Frantic
Commute through
Time's full arteries.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer for a Friend, Dead in a Jail Cell

You were too good.

You were too lonely,
Too lost, too loved
From a distance.

You knew heartache the way
A child knows her invisible friends
(Or her other secrets)
And you fought

Until it gently took you
In its arms
And danced with you --

Danced off the edge of the stage, --
A flash of satin,
Then
Silence.

i wish to my great, silent God
That you will be held,
Loved,
Healed
Where you have gone;

Because if you are not,
Then we have no recompense
For your absence,
No balm

For the wound
Opened by your final,
Muffled cry

For company.

--Mr. Gobley

The Day of the Truth of the Highest Meaning

i am about to dive down
and find what has lain silent.
In the penumbra of time
And a veil of sand
My soul lays dormant,
Not breathing,
Unsuffocated:
Unaware.

The descent to retrieve
Is fraught:

i must move slowly
So as not to threaten
My equilibrium
Or disturb the beasts
Of the deep.

i find where my soul lies
In angry repose
And i begin to lift.

There is little weight
But great resistance:
So small an essence,
Such gravity.

i rejoice in the struggle
That risks my life,
And in the recapture
Of the soul that is
Mine and
Not mine.

Such is the life
Of a penitent
On the day
Of the truth
Of the highest meaning.

-- Mr. Gobley

Alone in the Office

Today there is a company event,
Some corporate frolick on a boat
Or a beach;
i did not attend.

i sit in my office, alone, comforted by
The hum of the hard drive

And the fall of locust leaves
On this, our first autumnal day.

There is great comfort in finding solitude
Where it usually is not to be found.

Such unexpected, unruffled quiet
Reminds the part of you that is always alone
That it is, in fact, always kept company
By some idea
Or hope
Or grocery list
Or falling leaf;

Some reflection of a passing angel on your coffee cup
As she goes off to celebrate her freedom.

--Mr. Gobley

Wednesday

The blessing of this day
Is its middle-ness.

Along this bridge between Sabbaths,
Sun and Moon were created,
Ballasts of Time
Hung in black bunting.

Hidden in today's name,
The god of the Wild Hunt
Gallops above the ground,
Seeking between
Sky and Earth
The bounty that mortals
Cannot fathom,
Much less attain.

i set foot on this bridge,
The bridge of the
Middle Way,

And am embarked
Upon my own
Wild Hunt
For the promise
Of each week's path --
The heart of meaning,
Toward which I fly,

Unbound by time
Unfazed by torment,
Unafraid of the moment

When silence is revealed
At the center
Of the wandering
Universe.

--Mr. Gobley

The borrowed soul

i borrowed a soul
was given it, really
for a brief moment

it came wrapped in a
blanket of flesh
and box of bone

it was a mighty force
in a tiny package,
furious at its needs
and regal in its demands

it soon was clothed in
a personality
and gained
the rudiments of speech

it grew to know me
and surpass me
in all things

and now
my child
has a borrowed soul
of its own

another gift
like a telescope
that magnifies miracles more
the larger it gets

and i
full of the wonder
and the remorse
of the blessed

open my arms to
hold it
for this one
brief
borrowed
moment

--Mr. Gobley

A Visit from Beethoven

i sat in the concert hall --
All graceful arches and spandrels,
Filigree and high polish --

And was drenched
By the wake of sound
Plowed up by
The prow of
The mighty soprano.

Outside, the rain whispered
Its praises,
Crying for joy
On the concert hall's roof.

Sheltered from one downpour,
i was baptized in another --

Or, maybe, i thought,
I had received a visitation:
Each time the great are summoned,
They appear, atomized, annotated,
Scaled and sung:

Vocal cords vibrated, raindrops condensed,
Tiny bones of the eardrum --
The soul's own tuning fork --

Rattled by rays of being
More powerful, more enduring
Than Time itself.

That evening, we were visited
By Beethoven,
i'm sure of it --
As his notes were sung
And his rain fell
And our bones, great and small,
Trembled and hummed
In the presence of
His fevered majesty.

In this way, he lives on,
And i carry him forward,
Humbly,
Stumbling
Toward
You.

--Mr. Gobley

The tree that saved your life

the tree that saved your life
was not the oak that sheltered you
from withering heat

was not the pine
whose dry cones
and brittle bark
gave you kindling
for a fire
on that black,
aching night

the tree that saved your life
was not even the Douglas Fir
that seemed to call to you
one summer evening,
commanding you to
see wonder in all things

no, the tree that saved your life
dug its roots into rock
and by those roots
held itself upright above a gorge
calm and ageless
still and certain

impossible you said
impossible
how life makes life go on
until all going is gone

impossible how in any crag
life will set up shop
hold on for dear life
while i -- sodden with my own
private miseries --
ponder letting go

so you did as commanded:
you wondered -- at the sheer force
the desire to be
the knuckled roots determined, steady
content within their gnarled will
their unshakable embrace
holding to their eternal task

you looked awhile
then you knelt by the tree
and thanked it and
it spoke to you (in its way)

and at that moment you dug in --
your roots went down
into the rock of your life
further and more firmly each day

your branches spread
your head went more certainly
toward the Sun

and you pressed forward
to contain
to express
to share and shelter
to be
as much as that tree

and that's how
in that moment
by that tree
your life was saved.

--Mr. Gobley

Edge of Time

prepare with me
to fall into the abyss
of eternity.

Don't worry:
it only lasts a day.

Come with me
and feel time fall away
as we fall away from time.

We'll abandon all --
All cares, all commitments,
All concepts --

We'll watch the sun push shadows
Slowly through the back yard,

See backyard animals
On their unending rounds;

And soon, this sliver of endlessness
Will end.

Within that needle's eye of time,
We'll have lived a life.

Come see this sliver of forever
In our midst.

Don't worry:
It only lasts a day.

--Mr. Gobley

Waiting for You

Waiting for you to manifest inside me
Is like waiting for death to overtake me.

Waiting for you to hold me
Is like waiting for a tornado.

Waiting for you to have faith in me
Is like waiting to have faith in myself.

We go on like this.
Neither of us sure, both of us suspecting

That we contain each other,
Challenge each other,

Torment each other:
Are

And are not
Each other.

i will never let go
Of wondering

Whether, even now,
i am being held by

You.

--Mr. Gobley

I Hate You, i Love You

You have done this to me.

And for this,
I hate you --

You have made me to lie down in filth;
You have kicked dust in my teeth,
You have shattered my bones
And scattered my people.

What have I done--
What could anyone do --
To deserve such
Hatred?

Only remember:
My fierce devotion
Is not swayed by your mocking
My mortality --

Your loathing is merely
Mirrored back to you
In the hallowed blue light
Of your shallow, temporal love.

Your love is hate to me.

And so,
I hate you back.

And yet,
Seeing the burnt ember of embrace
In the ashes of our moment,
I am warmed, and
Made whole,
And scooped up from the scarred earth;

Gathered up
And held,
And then
I am i
And i remember the promises you made
And i am left alone with you,
And the sobs
That break my ribs
Are because,
After all this hate,
You still love me,

And
(the more fool) i
Love
You.

--Mr. Gobley

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

Lazy Susan

The light reflects off the varnish;
The bird at the center
Does somersaults.

The hieroglyphs on the edge
Tumble and flash.

The Lazy Susan winks
But does not illuminate,
Spins but goes nowhere;
A point at its edge
Will travel much further
Than a point near its center,

And yet these two points will make
The same number of revolutions
In the short and silent lifetime
Of their little, wooden
Solar System.

And i, i sit in a cone of silver light
Astonished that this turntable
Would show me the
Way to peaceful resolution
Of my fevered dreams:

Move, but stay centered;
Spin and sparkle
But do not fly apart:

In this way
You will be
What you were made to be:

A cornucopian presence
At the center of life's table,
Revolving,
Revealing;
A stationary dervish,
A votive vehicle,

Turning
And returning
On one well-finished
Point.

--Mr. Gobley

A Prayer for Jury Duty

O Just and Righteous Maker:

Today, as we begin the process
Of deciding the future course
Of a troubled life,
Be with us:

Be with us in the tedious hours
Of testimony,
The breaks for bad food;
Let us sense your presence
Beyond the grimy courtroom windows
And hovering above:

As there is judge and jury,
Prosecutor and defense,
So is there
Your patient Providence,
Which encompasses all of these,
And more.

Whatever the actions of the accused,
Whatever our decision,
Let not shattered lives
Be lived for naught.

And let those of us
Who have been brought together
To determine one person's fate

Be to each other
As counselors,
As companions

On a journey
Toward the justice
You have always sought
To make.

--Mr. Gobley

Dark Morning

And the rain washes away all warmth and certainty, even as it removes the brick, molecule by molecule, from the walls of my house.

And the sky refuses to speak to the Sun, and the Sun turns its back on the moon.

And all who are lost embrace their lost-ness, and all who are not lost refuse to lead.

And one by one the bright lights of the firmament go out.

And the ancient streams run with dark water.

And the ocean floor is an underwater desert,

And the village square is under surveillance.

And yet i, to whom all this was entrusted,

i will shine through this dark morning and entrust my love to the fading stars from which it came. i will no more assail my neighbors and curse my tormentors, for my curses will stick in my throat, and my tormentors will only sharpen their implements more gleefully.

No, i am made for song, and my song is this: the dark morning gives way, and gives way again. i am made to carry love and light, and i will move, even through dark mornings, toward you and all that casts shadow upon you.

You will see me and think: he is a dreamer. i will see you and say: behold, the source of my dream. We were made for each other, and from each other, and our dark mornings all hold the promise of light.

May you hold that light close, and hold it high, in the year that is upon us.

--Mr. Gobley

The Living and the Dead

When you are quiet,
You can hear the living
And the dead.

Humble yourself
And quiet your mind.

Then, suspend your consciousness
At the curving crossroads
Of our atmosphere.
There, the cries
Of the living and the dead
Will rise to you:

The sad and ceaseless sigh,
The last breath of the dying;
The outraged gasp and heroic cry
Of the newly born.

It goes on, this does,
In an endless cycle,
The gasps, the cries,
The releases and the urgent taking hold:

The world works so hard
At making and unmaking
That you can hear it,
Rising from every continent,
If you can just float above them for a moment.

You are a part of this play:
You have shouted your arrival
And you will sigh
Your departure,

But for now,
Just for this brief minute,
You are suspended,
At the edge of our atmosphere,
And rising toward you,
Ever toward you,

Are the cries
Of the living
And the dead...

--Mr. Gobley

Please Rise

If you worship, you will hear these words:

"Please rise."

When you hear them, you will stand up.

But why? Because you are told to?

Or because a moment of particular urgency is at hand?

Or because you want to be closer, just that much closer,
To God?

When you hear these words:

"Please rise" --

Do you rise, with all your intent and intensity,
With all your heart and soul,
With all your corpuscles and neurons;

And do you open your pores, your eyes, your mind,
Along with heart and soul,
To receive?

Whatever your religion is --
Even if none at all, defiantly none,
Denouncing the myth of God and its
Hallucinogenic hold on a mind
Weaker than yours --

You still can rise.
You can rise toward
Something.

That Something is waiting for you to rise.

In fact,
You were made to rise.

Rise,
With all you've got.

Please.

Rise.

--Mr. Gobley

The Spiritual Content of the Modern Office

Some days, i cannot work, because everything has deeper meaning than it was intended to have. Today is one of those days.

And so, because this colored veil has descended before me, i will demonstrate for you how any piece of business correspondence yields a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom.

How a business catch-phrase, or a corporate memorandum, or a strategic plan, is a thinly disguised exercise in spiritual growth, a plaintive cry toward a hidden God, a determined reach into the cosmos.

For example: i glance down at my desk and i see the words "Associate Director."

And from this, i receive the following:

O great Director
Of all tasks,
Great planner
Of significant meetings,
Master of Strategy,
Maker of Meaning:

Let me be so bold
As to assist you
In your undertakings
Large and small;
If i can serve You
Then i can
Know You;

If, in your employ,
i can heal wounds
and convey wonder,
then, in humble association
With You,
And under Your
Providential direction,

i might be so bold
As to become your
Associate Director.

We are all your
Associate Directors.
Let us blossom,
Leaves of learning
On your organizational tree,

That we may lend shade and shelter
To those that rest beneath.

*

Now i turn my attention to a memo, and i see the words:

"Accounts Receivable"

And from this i receive the following:

i am drying ink
on the ledger of your love.

i live to soak in
and reveal meaning
behind the vastness of numbers
that symbolize your might.

Through you, i am balanced,
Made whole
With that other side
Which also serves;
i rest for mere moments in
Your Accounts Receivable,
Waiting to make whole

The debt that began with the
Indebtedness of
My existence.

When i return to you:
Please receive me.
Balance me.
Mark my column,
So that you may also
Return to me.

*
i am not productive today. But i am blissfully happy.

May you be happy as well, today and always, as the words and work of another day peel open to reveal your connection to All That Is.

--Mr. Gobley

Offer May Vary

Now, for a limited time only,
You get to live.

That's right!

Against the odds posed by billions of years of wanton destruction, wholesale slaughter, disease, famine and environmental upheaval;

And thanks to evolution, DNA and your mom and dad, you have been chosen to receive this limited, one-time-only* offer!

You get time on Earth as a living, sentient being.

And that's not all.

You also get

• Limbic
• Nervous
• And immune systems
• Extremities (complete with ten-digit grasping set)
• Ideas
• Musculature
• And 14 ounces of gray matter to organize it all!
  
  

Amazing, isn't it?

But wait! There's more!

You get
Sneezes
Bereavement
Hysterical laughter
Sexual release
Tingling sensations
Righteous indignation
Burning love --
All right here in
the Milky Way!!

The only place
in the known Universe
Hospitable to life!!!

Our offer comes with
An almost infinite supply
Of sensation
Experience
Emotion
And action!

All in one body!

All you have to do
Is get out of bed,

And your life is on its way!

Act now.

This offer expires
At some indefinite point
In the future.**

You won't want to miss this exciting experience!

We're so confident you'll enjoy this one-time offer that we'll even include a Skeleton internal carrying frame at no extra cost!

But hurry:
Supplies are limited.

The Operator
Is standing by...

--Mr. Gobley

* Offer may vary according to your State. Contact Maker for details.
** supplies are limited. Not available on Mars, Neptune, Mercury, Uranus, Saturn, Venus, the Planet Formerly known as Pluto, or other planetary or astral bodies. No refunds. Please live responsibly.

Please forgive the rerun...

Friends and readers:

i hope you will forgive this rerun. It is the expression of my deepest wish for you as we take part in our ritual feast: true gratitude, which creates its own bounty.

Yours-

Mr. Gobley.

Three Days with No Sun

i believe in seasons --
but this is ridiculous.

i believe in rhythms,
but a rhythm requires
regularity, alternation,
syncopation --
some state that changes,
some mood that banishes
this continent of gray flannel
that floats over my frosted town.

The day has three phases:

dark,
kind of dark,
and dark.

And yet
i will give thanks:

for another brief breath
i am singing through telephone wires
sighing into a child's tousled hair

watching a squirrel eat an apple
laughing at bumper stickers

listening to a jazz guitar
on a scratchy LP
and understanding
that one solitary blink of an eyelash,
one tear,
one dented smile
is an untold bounty

that only You can give --
and given You have,
with constancy
outshining all ambition
and all hope,
and lasting even until
the Sun decides
at last
to shine again.

--Mr. Gobley

Now and Not Now

Thin wisp of Time, threaded into Mind like sinew into bone, and yet, blown by like brittle leaves, skittering on frosted pavement;

Brittle wafer of Space, a shaft of Presence in a world of Absence, wavering and yet impossibly still like the blade of a candle's flame;

You are sustained along these thinnest of membranes,

From moment to moment and from place to place:

A miracle, consisting of millions of smaller miracles:

You are worked through the narrows of suffering, and squeezed again onto a vast plateau of plenty: truly, what do you lack?

From birth, you have emerged from narrow space into vast space; from one crisis to the next, you have squeezed through dire straits into new opportunity, from dark confinement to brilliant contentment. You will suffer again; and again, you will be freed.

All peace is Now. All suffering is Not Now.

Stay in the Now: as long as you are present to the Present, your suffering is an abstract painting, hung on the walls of your darkened mind. Admire it; respect its maker; but do not live in it.

For each and every Now is a brilliant promise kept, a Treasure unearthed at your feet. It will ever be thus.

May you know it to be so,
Now and
Again.

--Mr. Gobley

A Meditation for the Newly Heartbroken

Was it each other
That we loved --
Or was it our demons
That drew us in?

Was the sacred moment
Our coming together
Or our being thrust apart?

No matter.

Now we are two
And we must swim
Upstream together
Toward the headwaters
Of forgiveness.

I forgive you
For being afraid
And for the dark weapons
That hid behind
Your shadowed heart.

I forgive myself
The heart I gave you:
What is left
Will harden and heal,

And a new bud will emerge
From the ancient center.

Please forgive me for
The pain
I caused
When I wrenched
What was left of me
Away from you.

In time, we will move away
From shared history
Toward common mission:

To love wholly,
To fully forgive,
And to pour light
Into dark places

Where for aching centuries
Nothing has grown.

--Mr. Gobley

Get Haunted

As the harvest is cleared
And the frost settles,
As the coals are banked
And the streams thicken
And slow;

As the clocks are turned back
And the dark creeps forward,
We feel ourselves to be
Briefly,
Miraculously alive.
We don masks,
Capes,
Wings --

We laugh and eat sugar,
And briefly gain the power
Of living
Over the unbeatable
Truth of Beyond.

Behind the scrim of childish screams
And the pointed hats
And the sparkling wands;
Beyond the luminescent fangs
And plastic scars

Is a great truth:

Spirits wait for you --

Wait with hollow eyes
And huge, beating hearts --

Wait for you to acknowledge,
To remember:

Remember that you once
Thanked God for them,
Sang songs to them,
Slammed doors,
Told lies,
Shed tears for them --

Lived with them.

All they ask,
On this night,
Is that you reach
From your precarious perch
Toward their waiting souls,
And so briefly, bravely
Complete the circuit
Of
Life.

--Mr. Gobley

Dusk

i will likely never know where it is i am gone to. Even when i am gone there, what will exist that still can be called "me"?

Each time the Sun sets, i am reminded of this: that the Sun is not gone, it merely is gone to those of us who enter the night. We rest assured of the Sun's return, and the night's, too; we have trained ourselves to not fear the sudden collapse of the solar system, not to panic about another mutiny in Heaven or dread an upending of the physical laws that made and sustain us.

Dusk is a moment of great wonder for me; a little sadness at the passage of time, a delight in the promise of rest. Even on the dreariest of days, the sky seems to expand -- if the sky had shoulders, they would relax at this moment -- and time seems to enter a thin envelope of eternity.

May your moments of rest and wonder expand at each dusk, and may your soul calmly dwell within that envelope of eternity from which you were born.

Your friend --

Mr. Gobley

Shhh...

Do you hear it?

It is thin and high,
Persistent and untroubled.

It comes from beyond,
Goes beyond,
Yet at all times
Runs through
You.

The bulldozers
And weed-whackers
And the
Grinding gears
Of our
Steel skeletons
Submerge
But do not
Subdue:

The thread
Between you
And the
Greater Self,
Despite all,
Still thrums
And vibrates
To the tune
Of your life;

Still courses through
The thin artery
Of timelessness
That nourishes
You.

This sound
Is underneath
Yet omnipresent,
Urgent
Yet patient.

It is
You.

Quiet.

Listen.

Ah, yes.

There
You
Are.

--Mr. Gobley

Simple

Focus in,
Pare down,
Aspire
To this:

One place to call home.

One unifying
Idea
By which
To question,
live,
learn.

One place
To which
You can retreat
For comfort
Aid
Inspiration
Rest.

One person
for whom
You would
Do anything.

And one peak
On which
To set your sights,

And by which to gauge
Your direction.

--Mr. Gobley

19

A prime number
has

a unique
relationship
to the number
One:

it is made
only of itself
and the
lonely integer
that stands for
One,
Oneness,
Unity.

A prime number
is odd --
which is to say,
not even --
and it is
possessed
of a solitary
quality

that sets it apart
even from its
closest neighbors.

Today,
i am a prime number,
made only of myself
and
All,

marching in
rank and file
with my
colleagues;

sequential,
collaborative
and yet
stubbornly
misanthropic;
obedient,
compliant
and yet

unalterably

alone.

--Mr. Gobley

Thought and Belief

Naught but a choir of neurons
Bids me sing of You;

Only a thin filament
Of electromagnetic
Salvation

That runs its riverbed
Can convey me
To the angels.

And every flash
That singes
The heavens
And inflames
My molten
Earth

Conducts itself
Along conduit
Made for that moment,
That purpose
Alone.

We are recombinant,
Combustible;
We perceive,
And in an instant
Are transformed.

What can we know,
Save that about which
We were born
To wonder?

And of what are we made,
Save that which
Makes us anew?

My blood
Bears Your signature,
My poor brain
Enfolds Your fingerprints:

In the blind brilliance
Of an instant
i see the filial embrace
Of piety and passion,

But in the light
Of my days
Plunge again
Into dull
Conjecture.

Small wonder:
i live in the world
We are making,
You and i;

Dark matter
Dances
With wave
And particle

To conduct
The electricity
Of enlightenment
Through the circuits
Of mere
Survival.

By simply
Being,
We eclipse
Being

And join You,
Our co-Creator,
In the crucible
Of eternal
Becoming.

--Mr. Gobley

Fitness Water

i want to be
your Fitness Water:

transparent
unremarkable
unexceptional

until tasted.

As i cool
your innards,
quench your
inner fire,

a little of me
remains
on your tongue:

sweet,
clear,
clean.

Leaving no trace
but a taste,
i am you
but something more:

water
that renews
replenishes
redeems:

we are fluid
we are one

i move into you
through you
beyond you --

perhaps
our molecules
will one day
meet again?

--Mr. Gobley

Fire Stairs

Each weekday morning
i climb six flights
to my office.

Sealed into a shaft
Of concrete and iron,
i slowly
ascend,

Trudging,
Thudding,
Breathing;

Nodding silently
To standpipes
And sprinkler valves
And the scuff mark
Shaped like a
Soda bottle.

Each landing
Its landmark,
Each numeral
Its meaning and place.

The elevator is faster
But it is crowded
And sullen
And the journey means
Nothing.

i prefer to climb,
My briefcase
Bumping against my hip
Like a saddlebag
Against the flanks
Of a prospector's mule:

Each nudge
Reminds me
Of what i carry
And what is carrying
Me.

Willingly
i ascend
Alone and silent
To my bower
Of glass and steel,

And when i arrive,
i feel the gentle thud
Of pumping blood

The stretch of tendons
The mild, muscular heat
And the knowledge

That at the end of this journey
There is work to be done.

The stairs are there
For safety, and
Each day
They quietly,
Happily
Save
My life.

--Mr. Gobley

The Teacher

The Teacher
Looked into
My eyes
And said
"You have
A beautiful soul"

And i wanted to ask
what it was that he saw

But at that time
There was
An arc of light a
Above his head

Pale but certain
Streaming with needles

It would not be moved

i said to myself
This man will be
My guide

And i embarked

It is a long road
A crowded
But lonely journey
Leading --

No one knows

But i know this:

i will grow
Only insofar
As i trust

Only insofar
As my fears
Are not my masters.

i will shout to you
From all along
This road

Streaming needles
Of love and longing
Lonely learning
A burning beacon
Shone on
You.

Free from torment
At last
i am
On the long
Lonely road
Home.


--Mr. Gobley

Work

They call it that
Because it is hard
And because it does not end
And you cannot leave it,
Though it may leave you.

It is a hardbitten,
Anglo-Saxon word,
The sound of an axe
Brought down
In bitterness
On the growth
Of a vast and lonely
Wood.

Work
Is a word
That followed us
From Eden,
Mocked us,
Made us sweat
And curse,
Never
Diminishing
No matter
What we achieved.

We are supremely blessed
To know this curse:
Poised at the top of Creation
And yet held within it,
We alone
Know infinite toil:

As our bodies never stop
Regenerating, recycling,
Sorting --
Rejecting, Absorbing --
So we are alone
Among all creatures,
Sculpting ourselves
Out of sand,

Fashioning universes
Out of found objects
And each others'
Dangerous brilliance.

Say with me
This prayer:

Let my work
Be Your work.

Let my effort
Bear fruit.

Let my desire
Take wing.

i am
In Your employ.

My fruit
Is borne of
Your mighty tree.

i rise
Toward you,
Bearing that
Lightest of burdens:

What little
i have done
That might earn
And spread
Your blessing.

--Mr. Gobley

To Do List

Breathe.

The cycling of air
Begins the renourishment
Of all that lives.
Each breath, a miracle of
Transformation,
Transpiration,
Endless genesis
Of beginningless life,
Is a promise fulfilled
Against staggering odds.

Touch.

All senses
Connect all matter,
And all that matters.
To touch is to
Forge a link
And to grow strong:
Skin to sacred skin
Or sense to
Stimulus,
We absorb
What is touched
And give back
To the Maker
A new blessing,
A new strength:
God is helped.

Live.

Do not cast yourself
In the mind's
Shadow-play.
Instead,
Dwell in
The growing miracle
Of how much
You know:
That you at once
Apprehend
And partake
Means that you
Make meaning
Out of thin air.

My list says
Nothing else.

--Mr. Gobley

How to Say Goodbye

First, you bestow a lasting kindness.

Then, you express gratitude.

You smile throughout;

You heal as you leave.

Remember that,
As you cause pain,
So must you liberate:

There is no captivity
So cruel
As an abrupt
And unforgiving
Departure.

As you prepare others,
So shall you be prepared;
As you heal,
So shall you be healed.

And humor:
Do not forget humor,
The greatest balm
Against bathos,
The crowning glory
Of humility.

Then,
If you can,
Depart quietly,
Swiftly,
Sweetly:

Sing praises
And stitch a hymn
Of light and dark
Across the
Compassionate cosmos.

As you go,
Leave a space,
A rest between notes;
Let your last steps
Be the steps
Of a joyous dance,

A flight toward freedom
Whose trail tapers
To sweet nothing
In the vastness
Of
All.

--Mr. Gobley

A Dream of Dying

I dreamt of our death,
Yours and mine.

Our synapses,
Clogged with messages,
Could not convey
The urgency
Of the moment
To our hurried minds.

Free men and women,
We held a lamp
In a hurricane,
And imagined it
To be
A beacon
That would never go dark.

And i said to you,
On the eve
Of the end
Of our great experiment,

Only this:

The majesty of our minds
And the purpose
Of our souls

Will be extinguished in fire.

Our eyes, filmed over,
Will go entirely dark.

Only the sound
Of our pursuers
Will be heard,
Coming for us
Through the woods.

i awoke and was relieved,
But not entirely,

Because, though awake
These many hours,
i still
Hear them coming.

--Mr. Gobley

Bed of Nails

Hauled before my maker
On a sled of steel wool,
i cry for mercy.

Were it not for
The real suffering
In the world,
Mine would snatch
Greatness from the heavens.

i reflect:
As we crawled from dank pools,
Flapped toward Eden with our fins,
Were we not constantly
In mortal agony?

Was our pain
Not simply
A fact,
A given?

As we rise
Rung by rung
On Jacob's ladder
We begin to forget
The primordial bog
In which its legs
Are sunk.

i will not rest tonight.
i will be aflame with fever, but
i will pray for peace,
And will gladly suffer
In my small, comfortable way,

So that, in time,
i may again rejoice
With all
Your children.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer for Them All

You,
Who do not believe
In prayer;

You, to whom
There is no
Divine;

You, for whom
Life is a
Line dance,
A wine bar,
A beach:

On your knees.

Start praying.

If nothing else,
Prayer concentrates
The mind.

Prayer focuses
Intention.

Prayer summons
Great strengths
From unknown
Depths.

Prayer
Establishes
Connection.

i pray
For them all:

All whose agendas
Are built on
Suffering and
False sanctity.

All who die,
And all who kill.

All who murder,
All who are murdered.

All who speak truth,
All who live by
Slur and slander.

All who sing praises,
All who slit throats.

i pray to
Establish
Contact.

Through them,
To them,
Let Divine intention --
Some greatness,
Or perhaps just some
Shard of compassion --
Enter their heart.

Let mercy come running.

Please,
If not on knees,
Then on wings;

If not on high,
Then right here.

We are running out of time.

--Mr. Gobley

The Joy of Insomnia

The darkened rim
Of the witless world
Is on fire.

No one may save me
From this
Silent conflagration,

This baptismal hush:
Love
For this moment,

Speechless awe,
Turning wonder;

i dance
In the vanishing dark
Like a fool

While, all around me,
Sensibility sleeps.

For you
My eyes
Will never close

My mind
Will never stop conjuring.

As morning rears up
And our brief business
Resumes,

i will shoulder the wheel
And strain toward
The promise of peace,

But i will never
Be more grateful
Than now,

Even as peace,
That shy ghost,
Disappears
From my grasp...

--Mr. Gobley

The Oasis

We found a natural pool
The color of an apple martini

At the top of a waterfall
Between narrow shafts of rock
Carved by a river
Rain-swollen in winter
A mere ghost in summer

Through the giant aperture
We could see the Sun
Admiring its reflection
In a languid sea

We scooped
The jade water
Made lemongrass tea
On a portable stove

We dove deep
Into the cupped palm
Of this paradise
And sat
As our bodies cooled
And our souls rose

In their contradance
With the setting Sun

It made us know
That Paradise
Is a region
Of the soul
That will always
Exist

And proclaim itself
In these moments

When time exists
Yet does not
Death waits
But is not:

We are baptized
In wonder
And bathed
In cool eternity

That lasts for
Just this one
Moment

--Mr. Gobley

Into the Wilderness

i go
to the far corners
of peace,

where i will see,
again,
the proportion
of soul to self

to realm

to universe.

i will find you
in even the
deepest silences
and the fiercest
struggles,

and i will know you
in every moment
of darkness

and promise of light.

as long as i breathe
i will reach toward you,

and as long as i suffer
you will reach toward me.

the moment of our meeting
is my destination,
your promise:
our shared destiny.

--Mr. Gobley

The Animals Underneath

My morning coffee
Is taken at a window
From which i can see
The animals
That stand to
Inherit my house.

They are small, quick,
Tremulous things
With rapid pulses
And nervous eyes.

We,
Who live in
Rectangular fortresses,
Disdain these
Quickened creatures.
They dig up the bulbs
And burrow under
The foundation.

They are always busy.

They multiply furiously.

Even as they scurry,
Looking hunted,
They meekly munch
And politely trample
All that human hands
Have daintily set
In the black soil
Of suburbia.

And yet,
Each morning i say,
As i raise my cup:

"i salute you,
Survivors of civilization:
You, who will live on
After we who build
Have finished with our
Own destruction.

May you continue to rise
Toward shy dominion

Over what has been given,
Slowly,
Carefully,
Lovingly --

Especially to you."

--Mr. Gobley

The Schrodinger Shift

I read John Gribbin's book on quantum physics, In Search of Schrödinger's Cat. Towards the end, he seriously entertains as a live option the notion that we brought the universe into existence by observing it. -- Micah Newman

Here at last
Is the secret
Of our unfolding!

We are made
Of what we make,
We are
Both paper
And crease --

An organic origami,

An evanescent Escher,
Emergent from Mind --

But whose?

We are
To procreate
And co-create:

We make others
(With others)
Even as we
Make ourselves
(With no other,

Other than
The Other
That is All)!

We spiral around
This empty center,
Making a double-helix
Of Self and No-Self,
Until, at last,
We are self-less.

Having made
That which we observe,
We observe
What we have made,
And in this Sabbath moment,
Our creation --
Our soul --

Is made to midwife itself
Into miraculous Being,
And become
All, and more than all:

Which is to say,
Complete.

--Mr. Gobley

A letter to my friends

Dear Readers:

i have published a few of the posts that have appeared here, through iUniverse.

i hope you might buy one of these small books for yourself, or for a friend who might benefit from seeing and hearing some of what i have seen and heard.

You can get the book here, here or even here.

i suppose a store would order it, if you asked them to.

As soon as i can figure out how to put the 'buy my book' button in the right-hand column, i will do so.

Happy reading.

Faithfully yours,

--Mr. Gobley

Heat and Wind

The two promises
Are whispered
Across millennia;

The eternal emissaries
Of life
Come together

In a violent embrace
That bequeaths to us
A storm of
Sensuous strength:

It is the season,
In this tropical realm,
To feel the languid fire
And the stinging rain,

And to love the God
Who pushes a profusion
Of life
Up through the
Marshes
And the
Tidal flats

And the flattened
Subdivisions.

Life takes less time
To restore itself
Than even hope.

Remember this,
And know that
The storm that
Passes over you

Brings great bounty:
The heat stirs life,
The wind brings change,

And the silence after
Opens a lighted space
For seedlings
Of hope.

--Mr. Gobley

Meditation for a Railroad Crossing

Time has not stopped,
But it has been detained.

The ringing of the crossing bells
And the rhythmic clatter
Of the rails
Both mark the measure of its
Prison sentence:
Unceasing, oblivious,
Syncopated
Sluicing
Of cells,

And this:

The flow of a day
Perforated
By a thundering arrow

Comprised of cars:
Flat,
Box,
Tank:

Their syllables
As square and regular
As the beat they keep.

i keep this beat, too:
My heart, my breath
Align themselves
With the biorhythms
Of this mighty
Yet somnolent
Beast.

And here am i,
Moving and still,
Inside and out,
Centered
And utterly
Lost to myself.

When the train is gone:

Nirvana!

The gates rise,
The bells cease,
And time flows freely
Through cleared arteries.

The geometric clutter
And clatter
Recede into infinity --

And i return to
The box,
Tank,
Flat cars
Of my day.

i ride time's rails
Toward my own
Point of parallax,

Glad to have known
This
Train
Of Moments.

--Mr. Gobley

After a Thunderstorm

as the storm recedes,
the heavy sweetness
of late Spring air
washes back over
us.

trees grown heavy
with plenty
bow beneath
the great giving
sky.

a shudder of lightning
moves across the evening;
the Lover
rises and departs.

the patient Earth
has been
tempestuously,
grandly
loved,
and we
who live on it
have been
nourished
and healed

and, once again,
forgiven.

--Mr. Gobley

Benediction

Move your hand
In a slow circle
As you look out your window
At a squirrel.

Pass your palm
Over the dashboard
Of your faithful car.

Place your index finger
On the bridge
Of your child's nose;

And while you make
These silent gestures,
Think to yourself:

"As in each moment
You keep faith with me,
So I keep faith with you,
Your constancy,

Your
Being,
And together,
Our
Becoming."

This benediction
Will draw you
Into closer embrace
With the world,

Which will
Rise to greet you,
Gently,
Gratefully,
Faithfully
Each morning.

--Mr. Gobley

To the Hawk Outside My Office Window

It is hard work being you.

Your wings work angrily
To hoist you above the exhaust,
The spray of the fountain
In the midst of the
Chemically azured waters of
The office park's lagoon,
The waftings of the restaurants
Across the way.

You struggle above the boulevard
Toward a dome, a disk
Of unspoiled Spring sky.

You work by rising up
And looking down:
You circle above
The twelve acres
Where your meals move,
The marshy field
That somehow has
Survived as itself.

By the end of next year,
Those acres will be home
Not to you,
But to the likes of me:

The surveyor's stakes
Are already planted
At the corners,
Their red ribbons
Proudly announcing
More
Progress.

Fly on,
Be fearless
On our behalf:
At least you know
Why you were made,
And you live,
Rising,
Always rising
To better see
This
Truth,

Even if,
Each day,
It becomes
A little harder
To find.

--Mr. Gobley

At my desk, on Monday morning, lacking will

First, i stack everything neatly.

Then, i go to the kitchen
for a cup of coffee.

i return to my office:
the stacks wait;
my duties deliquesce
like corpses in a morgue.

Is it time yet
for a mid-morning snack,
i wonder . . .

The red voice-mail light blinks;
i am astonished,
my reverie shattered,
when someone plunges
into my fish-bowl world,
all efficiency and effort:

i have come untethered.

My heart and soul are
elsewhere,
But i am
Here.

In this slow,
silent lesson,
this steady acceleration
into the wall
of the World,
i brace myself

for collision
with my fears.

--Mr. Gobley

On Being Woken at 4:30 by birds

The melody is a mantra.

It pulls the Sun
From the horizon
And my heart
Rises with it,
Eclipsing the rim
Of my despair.

You will sing
Until the Sun
Has fully kept
Its promise.

My clock
Is an abstraction:

In this hour
When motors
Still sleep,
Your alarm

Means God
Has kept His word
Another day

And so must i
keep mine.

Perhaps only you
Can see the hope
In this new day.

Helpless,
My hopes rise
With yours

Toward
All that is possible,
All that is prayed,
All that becomes itself
With each new moment.

--Mr. Gobley

On Finding A Dime

To glance at a gray, translucent page
from yesterday's paper,
and detect a perfect circle;

To lift the sodden edge
of old news
and discover a silver silhouette,
a man of pedigree,
and, on the reverse,
some eternal flame--

This is the bounty
of life
proclaiming itself
for someone to see.

Today, that someone
was me.

Look hard tomorrow:
there is a message waiting:
some code,
some gem,
some blossom,
some treasure

from beyond you

will connect
to the Source

within you


and you will be
made new . . .

---Mr. Gobley