The open owl



Open

The owl's soft, silent wings


Open

​The owl's wide, wise eyes 



Opening the pale grey dusk

Beyond the crimson sunset


​

The rocks whisper


the rocks whisper a way
the trees forget
over growing
for the sun is pleasing
and their masters are lost

the forest is empty
there was another life
in the master’s way
the trees know not

here in the wilderness
the trees are lonely
and dream of the garden

(for a garden they would be
tended by loving hands
their roots growing deeper
the sun slanting 
under their boughs
to warm their feet)

yet the trees know not their loneliness
or their dreams

they are the silence
that shall receive the work of the word
and hold the meaning

but first there must be a new path

they must beckon
with their humble silence
the hearts of man

men shall come
there is solace in the silence
for they are part of nature

they too have forgotten
and would remember

they have lost their home
and would return
so that death has nowhere else
to take them


they will serve the garden
which will teach them in turn
beauty and transience of life they shall learn

born will be the garden of the soul
and mankind will have found in truth
a far greater whole
where death shall have no dominion

​

​The law is not shaken from the treetops
By commandments gusting from heaven
Blood paints history in a stillness and silence
Which promises a different justice...

Cool water rises from the soil

Pale blue flowers awaken

Forget-me-not

​Colours gather light and gradually fade
Gently into humble pastel shade
Changing the very fabric of the mind

Such are the denim devas
Coming to save us

Refuge

respect at my father's table
love on my mother's knee
here before and after
and here before and after me

​

Read

Words and reading by Ajahn Kalyano.
Music: Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt.
Edited by Gordon Oaks.

Music is used with permission of TONO, Oslo, https://www.tono.no/en/

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​The shrouded smile

Sylvia Plath is reborn to be free

​

she shut her eyes and all the world dropped dead;
so she had to make it up inside her head

all the lies galloped in
she saw the mind go as black as sin
and she knew, she said
that she was already dead

when she shut her eyes all the world dropped dead
'must have just been my eyes filling my head'
she thought

she opened her eyes
and stepped out of bed...

would you have me sleep 
to dream of you?
she said

this is not true love
for 
unless persuaded by my madness
I am alone in my dreams
and lost to the living and the dead

before I marry a dream
I would run from the church 
and escape a life of sugar-lump sleep

and I would keep running

for I would rather
with lemon sharp eyes
wake again 
even from the wakened state
into the formless

and what would this mean
 for us?
that you must die
 to join me in this heaven?

we need not die
I do not doubt or fear 
heaven is here


one day we will die
this I must whisper 
to my deeper self
 I forever forget dying
because forgetting is itself like dying

but to be at One
I must love the sky
from the freedom of my dust
until the shrouded smile of myself
fades into the sunrise

she thought

she thought
until she found herself 
worried about the words


then
the spell of the sounds
broken
the half-understood
half awake, awoken

the cosy cover lifted 

silence ruled at last
before and after

and she could be the truth 
and not the thought 

a truth we could share
forever 
more

such is true love

she said
​

​
Time Answered



​lost and lost in each other
shadows mourn
they dance their darkness
in their own little world
of cast down chiaroscuro

raised above
wrapped in ribbons
dance the free light and colour
of heaven

between 
lies calm, priestly presence
and the sermon is ready already
in the heart of man

seen and unseen
felt between and between
lies this ambiguous body
rhythm of blood and breath
seasons of life and death
within this life

the body has its own rule
we must respect
we shall sharpen it as our tool
and expect
as we might

and towards what end
my friend
shall we fight?
does the matter really matter?
the blood shall one day splatter
don't tell the wife

yet the senses may learn 
and win a truth that may turn
us back to life...

time questions
the world turns
in perpetual doubt

not taking its time
but taken by time
the world quakes

time takes 
this is the truth
yet time takes not this truth

the inner light speaks
and casts no shadow
and the words have the sound 
of words that are heard
taken within, between between
there in the empty alley

time is answered
light of heart and heart of light
before the word is spoken
and after
celebrating the life that lies
forever in the silence

and the lost shall be found
found where they are most lost
cast adrift
pilgrims in hope of freedom

in the sea or on the islands
in the hope of freedom
shall speak the clear horizon

where the prayer falls
the truth calls
there where the grey light
ripples and shimmers
there where the silence glimmers

the humble heart
shall hear the call
never to part
never to fall

for life is encoded in the fertile seed
there is the ultimate cause

and there in between
and between the between
on the horizon
of the space and the pause
is eternity 
written between 
and between between
the lines of a life 
a life of truth
a true life
freed
there too in the fertile seed

and at the source of the river
unseen, between the between
in the trickle in the mud
there where the air is green
there at the first blood
there begins the search for us all
to stem the mighty flood

there where nature will reach us
there where nature will teach us
straight from heart
to heart

​​Read

Words and reading by Ajahn Kalyano.
Music: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by Arvo Pärt.
Edited by Gordon Oaks.

Music is used with the permission of Universal Edition AG, Vienna, www.universaledition.com
and ECM Records, www.ecmrecords.com/​​
​

Words and reading by Ajahn Kalyano.
Music: Für Alina by Arvo Pärt.
Edited by Gordon Oaks.

Music is used with the permission of TONO, Oslo, https://www.tono.no/en/
​

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