There is a heart everywhere.

Poems by Benjamin J Major

Opening

I have dismantled many of my barriers.

Most of them were bad habits.
A cactus flower can emerge from its spindly bed
With enough exposure to the sun.
There was a man walking down a street,
Hurling abuse at passing strollers and drivers.
A kind soul stopped to ask him what was the matter.
The man replied, thornily,
“Can’t you see?
I’m getting old.
My job is meaningless.
I feel inadequate.
I can’t do anything but sit and feel sorry
For myself and drink the house dry.”
A river doesn’t go up a mountain
In order to reach the sea.
The wind doesn’t build a wall
Just to take running jumps
In order to scale it.

Strive to fill every pore of your existence.

Stop building barriers to full life.
Try not to claim too soon,
“That is not for me,
That is someone else’s life.”
A bird, soaring high, looking for a place to land
Doesn’t spot a tree and exclaim,
“That tree’s not for me,
It belongs to someone else
Who has such and such a life.
I wouldn’t want to show myself up.”
A bird seizes the opportunity.
It lands on the tree,
The tallest and grandest tree in the forest.
The drunken man kept shouting
At all who would listen,
“Can you not see it’s pointless?
However hard I work I cannot afford
The fruits which my friends possess.
My plasma screen TV is outdated
Less then a year after I bought it.
I cannot keep love by my side either,
Like they can.
What good is looking after my body?
That’s for someone else.
I might as well drink myself to an early grave.”
He cried.
At the trees, at the birds and at the sky.
Did you hear about the man,
Waist high in purest spring water
Like a raindrop in a mountain lake
Who insisted that he was parched
And couldn’t find a drop to drink?

Knock away all those walls,

Drink from the spring water,
Dance, write, sing, or climb the tallest tree.
You are not at school now,
Life is not a hurdle to surmount.
So don’t be a weary racehorse.
Go back to playing.
Anything else is just pretending.

The pink cactus flower has opened again

With renewed vigour.

You’ve opened up to the sun too.

Said simply, “Good morning”,
And appreciated its life bearing rays.
Patience

We all have a bull inside of us.

Growling, snorting, pulling at the reins.
We try to tame it, find stillness,
But at other times it rears its head,
Goes out of control.

On a mountain slope,
A herd of goats attentively negotiate
A steep incline whilst two passing travellers
Stare incredulously at the spectacle.
How do they not fall off?

The goats endure, through the seasons.

One day their earnest mountain climbing
Causes some loose stones
To fall upon some sunbathers
Who are enjoying the beach below.
One of those sunbathers gets annoyed at this.
A bull arrives, in full steam.
He rises tall and shouts loudly
“Scram, leave us alone!”
He picks up a pebble and throws it.

Keep the bull at bay.

Another year, another country devastated by war.

So, a few of your kinsmen may be imprisoned.
Is that an excuse to kill hundreds
Of innocents in their own homes?
Listen to your heart for a moment.

In the ancient myth,

The god Baal fought Yam,
The primordial sea, the symbol of chaos,
Thus creating order out of chaos.
Substitute Baal for any number of warrior-gods.

No one can control the spiritual world.

He who claims to destroy chaos
Is deluding himself.
The sea is rising and the forests are dying,
If that is not chaos then what is?
There is a sharp edge
Between the realm of order and of chaos.
Each and every one of us is balanced,
Every creature on this Earth,
On that blade.

A better philosophy is one

Lacking warrior gods and terrible daemons.
A simple philosophy,
Perhaps that of the goat?
Climbing, patiently. Focused and balanced.

But I can’t tell you these things!

You must walk out like the goat yourself.
Find a diligent practise.
If the moon is out tonight you might find
You don’t need a torchlight.

You might find the world looks different.

You might call out to a goat,
“Hey, fellow creature. Doesn’t the sea look beautiful?”
You might find yourself unable to throw a pebble
In case it hurts the pebble.
You may argue, and I would hear,
That the leader of the world’s
Most powerful nation
Is still riding high
Behind his bullhorns.

You cry,
“What hope is there for the rest of us?”
The next transformation will come from the inside.
We humans keep stumbling upon the secret,
Then it gets crushed before it flowers.
One day we will be climbing a tall mountain,
Wondering why we gave ourselves that pain
Of charging at mere phantoms.

Transformation

You can make yourself drunk on this.

Wines are like stale waters
Compared to this beauty.
You can spin around wildly
Like a small child on a beach,
Admiring in awe the colours, scents and sounds
That this angel brings into your life.

You stare into a yellow meadow

And feel creativity flowing through your veins.

You open up a bag of vegetables

And are overwhelmed by their divine smell.

You listen to a voice calling you from upstairs

And you become ecstatic, beaming with pleasure.

A bag of vegetables becomes a delicious supper.

Left out in the sun, sea salt crystallises.
A rock is moulded into a grand throne by waves.
A cultivated vine bears grapes.
Everywhere, a transformation takes place

A young woman staggers home one night.

She ends up on the floor,
Her friends, unable to help her
Wobble around, laughing and shouting.
What drives you to this?
Are these the only wines you can taste?
Every day we walk through finer wines
And don’t notice them.

At home, a man and woman

Scream at each other in an intoxicated rage.
Everybody on the street can hear
Their unbridled accusations.
Had you sipped from a different glass
You may have been embraced in a peace
Which would send babies to sleep.

A horse is wild but can be bridled.

Bind weed can be cut back.
Bind weed can be persistent
But you have to keep patiently working on it.

A fire can scar acres of moor land,

We try to quench it before it gets ugly.

The bag of vegetables sits there rotting,

Crawling with insects,
Unless a hand comes along
To turn the vegetables into a tasty stew.
Your hand sorts, peels and chops the vegetables.
You see the vibrant colours.
Smell the fresh scents.
Hear it sizzling and crackling in the oven.

This is not fast food but

Meditative food.

So what I am trying to say is this.

I have been grown
Like the vegetables in the bag
By you.

Carefully prepared by your firm hands,

Roasted in the oven
Till I’m steaming
By you.

Let us eat together the bag of vegetables

And let us wash it down with a fine wine.

The wine of life!

Freedom

Don’t let that intellect hold you back,

Let those heart words flow through you
Straight on to the page.
Do not let your inhibitions strangle you now.
You’re living as though you’re dancing,
Completely free.

A butterfly lands on your fingertips.

Suddenly the world dissolves,
Just a bright fluttering wing motion now.
Gandhi walked down the same alleyways
As everyone else,
But what he saw was different.
Each of us walks a different alleyway, I suppose.

Remember, that butterfly was once

Wrapped tightly, mummified, in a chrysalis.
Imagine whispering into it,
Asking with incredulity,
“Why don’t you come out?
The world is really beautiful out here,
There are trees and flowers,
Valleys and streams,
Bushes within which to flit around
In a bright sparkling blur on summer afternoons.”

You can imagine a small voice from

Within the chrysalis, replying coolly,
“What do you mean?
All I know is the world inside here.
You cannot fool me with those wild fantasies.
I can know only what I have experienced.
There is no other world than that…”

Today you look out of your window

And you see a lot of folk,
Their minds look very focused
As if they know where they are going.
But inside, their mind wings are fluttering.
Madly banging against their brain cases,
Wanting to get out.

A neighbour is cutting down a tree.

If anybody tries to challenge him,
Urging him that he at least ask his neighbours
If they mind him performing such an act,
He suddenly sets on fire,
Tugs on his chains and yells,
“Mind your own business,
Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do,
Leave this work to real men
Or else I’ll knock off your head.”

On a grey street,
A group of youngsters huddle together,
Faces hidden away in their hoods.
Now they are smashing up a bus shelter.
An old lady hurries by, tutting,
“What a world we live in these days!”
Imagine strolling up to these youngsters,
Exclaiming,
“What the hell are you doing?
The world is really beautiful out here.
There are trees to climb,
Flowers to pick,
Valleys with streams to damn,
Wood to craft and make things with,
Wide open spaces and breathtaking freedom.”

I don’t have to say any more.

Listen only for that distant voice,

“I can know only what I have experienced.
There is no other world than that…”

Millions of potential butterfly hearts

Are trapped this way.

Growth

I feel like a newly crushed garlic.

Through you,
I grow and I learn how to live.
Every peeling of a garlic clove,
Every snipping of fresh thyme,
Each olive, each pine kernel,
Brings me closer to union with you.
Now I’m existing.
Before I was just stuffing
My face with so much unhealthy junk.

It’s a familiar tale in these days.

You’ve all heard about the man
Who ate only food from plastic trays,
That sloppy, salty stuff of
Monoculture fields and chicken-plucking factories.
Everything seemed fine at first,
But his farts would give him away.
He would get on to a bus
And try as he might to hold it in,
Would eventually let rip and have the whole
Bus choking and gasping for fresh air!

A newly crushed garlic releases its scent,

What a delight- It fills a kitchen with joy!
Chives recently picked from the garden
Are chopped and the aroma wafts about
Sending you into a giddy trance.
You become one with the ingredients in this way,
Whirling around,
Chopping this, peeling that.
An organic union emerges.

The bus stops.

A dozen people herd out before the windy man,
Still holding their noses and mouths.
Breathing in with relief
For the pure air.

He roams home to his flat,

Wondering what’s left in his freezer,
“Curry tonight,
Or perhaps a lasagne?” he muses.
He tries to remember which has
The shortest microwaving time.
After all, there is a good film
He doesn’t want to miss
On the television tonight.
All the while, he keeps farting.

A good farmer knows what season

To plant her crops.
She knows the ideal time to grow
This or that.
She knows about the rain and the
Cycles of the moon and how they
Affect the soil and the growing roots.

Remember you were growing once.

Someone’s hand fed and watered you,
Shielded you from the environment
Or exposed you to it at their will.
Now you’re out of the field.
You’re cooking. What for?

Keep an eye on the rain and the moon.

Watch your environment.
Distinguish a sweet smelling onion
From a bad one.
Keep your farts sweet smelling.

We have to keep watching

What we do to our environment.

Because at the end of the day,

It’s our children who have to lodge their roots
Like garlics,
And grow in it.

Boldness

One morning, following a huge storm,

An ancient was walking alone along
A mountain pass.

He was stopped by a shepherd

Who stood next to a shady tree,
With his goats all about him
Each one looking around, apprehensively.

He was about to open his mouth

When the ancient raised his hand
And said, calmly,
“Wait, you need not speak,
I already see your problem here.
Your goats sheltered under this tree
Last night, when the huge storm struck.
Now they will not leave it,
Even though the storm has passed
And the morning is as clear as can be!
If only one of these goats
Was bold enough to leave
The shady comfort of the tree,
Then the rest would surely follow.”

It takes a great one

To lead the way out of that shade.
A few more stories;

A man strides over a tarnished,

Darkened landscape. Nothing grows.
Just black skeletal tree stumps here and there.
He keeps chanting to himself
The mantra,
“It’s all in the name of progress.”

One nation’s leader assists

In bombing another, then another.
Then he wonders why some of his population
Are radicalising. Some want to kill him!
Some wonder!

A woman lost in love

Trips over some stairs.
She was gazing at the sky.

There are lots of different kinds of blindness.

The one that arises when lovers are
Together is the best of these.
In actual fact it is a non-blindness.
It is rather an opening up.

One morning,
You wake up together
And you find you are fighting over the same
Book of spiritual poetry.
You go to make breakfast,
And you want the same music playing!
It’s almost as if you have been
Spending your whole life aimlessly
Wandering down a path just in order
So that you could meet up with this one.

There are lips everywhere.

Kiss them.

There are arms everywhere.

Hold them
Hold them.

There is a heart everywhere.

Caress it.

The goats look at each other,

Then at the ancient, then at each other again.
Finally they follow him down the mountain pass.

Be bold. Walk out from the shelter,

If you feel the storm is over.
Impermanence

A bereaved man stands upon the brink of a cliff,

Hurling his wife’s ashes into the wind. Cries,
“Goodbye my love. Goodbye.”

A girl stands underneath an umbrella,

Keeps looking at her watch, thinking,
“When will this rain end?”

A grand duke looks at the mighty wall

That surrounds his city, admires it and declares,
“It’s as solid as a rock.”

A poet writes, “Time is like a river.”

I’ve got a few things to say about

Impermanence.

The wind knows about impermanence.

It goes this way one minute, that way the next,
Circles and eddies until it gets quite dizzy.
Twists and turns around narrow streets
Like a Chinese dragon,
Bending television aerials and blowing off tiles.

The rain knows all about impermanence.

It comes and goes, feeding the plants and trees.
Some days, rain clouds clomp sullenly around the sky
Until it feels as though that grey blanket
Will never lift from our skies.
But it does and then the sun breaks through.

Rock knows all too well about impermanence.

On a geological timescale, rock too becomes a
Fluid substance. It can go to sleep underneath the ocean
And arise the next day in snowy, freezing altitudes.
It can remember being born of fiery lava,
Even as it crumbles away into nought.

Time is impermanence .The ever-changing.

Time is the rock-becoming-sand,
Time is the rain cloud-becoming-sun,
Time is the wind-becoming-stillness,
Time is the force that moves us forward
And which makes change and difference happen.

If time is like a river then where are its banks?

We cannot see them- the river is too wide.

And if time is like a river as the poet wrote,

Are we at the mouth, drifting out to sea,
Or are we still in the mountains
Cascading down the rapids in a raft?
We’ve barely even started our journey.

And if time is like a river,

What of the grand duke’s mighty wall?
Crashed and broken by the tides.

What of the girl underneath her umbrella

Who glances at her watch so?
She’s caught in an eddy,
Not so different from the rest of us,
Grasping for branches.

What of the man who hurls his wife’s ashes to the wind?

He’s now become old.

Cannot remember the names of his own family.
Has vague memories of standing atop a cliff
Somewhere in the foggy past.
But he’s learned all about impermanence,
And of how the river, after all, flows on…
Fragility

The cactus flower readies itself to resurge,

Holding its organic potential tight
In a bright pink bud to brighten yet another day
With it’s joyful charm, laughing out of your window,
“It’s good to be here!”

Like the woman who ambles with a smile,

Eyes bursting with joyful charm,
Into your path, exclaiming silently
“It’s lovely, so lovely, to meet you.”

In a deep brook with dragonflies and orchids,

Hazy slats of sunbeam peering around the trees,
On a grassy bank next to a sparkling stream,
I lay with you all day.
Watching a ladybird as it clings to its leaf.
I fill my glass with all of this beauty.
Need nothing more.

“Is it morning or afternoon?” a drunk asked me.

I cannot answer, I’m as uncertain as he.
“Please show me the way to the pub.” Says he.
How can I say it? You’re here.

You cry into your hands at night,

Ask for somebody to help you,
No one comes so you drown yourself.
Night becomes morning becomes afternoon,
Until you can barely bring your head above water.

That ladybird holds fast onto its leaf.

Below it, the stream rushes onwards
Taking with it all manner of leaves and twigs upon
An uncertain course without a navigator.
The ladybird holds on to dear life,
Keeps its cup from spilling,
And its life blood from returning to the stream.

We’re all returning.

Bleeding into the universe.
Life is the tavern from which we drink.
When it is time to go home we go,
Our cup falling from our lips-
Smashes on the floor,
We spill out into the world.

As men fight like boys with stick guns,

Over a land dappled with olive trees,
Believing that they are making ‘history’,
The land waits generously, as it has done for millennia,
Caring little whose stick guns win or whose lose.
As those deadly stick wars wage on,
The clamour of cups breaking on the ground
Is deafening. Blood is spilling into streams,
Red life-lines washing out into the sea.

A family picnicking on the beach

Watch with horror as a deadly gaunt grey shape
Emerges from over the mountains
As a ghost might emerge.
But it is not a ghost
It is a bearer of death,
This indiscriminate breaker of life-cups
Tiny or large, young or old.
The family have nowhere to run to.

“Is it morning or afternoon?” It doesn’t matter,

One loud crash and eruption of light later
And all that remains are limbs strewn and souls torn
By a stray missile
Over a blood stained beach.
I can’t tell you how much the universe
Abhors such a waste. No words can express it.
Life.
You cannot get lost on the way to this tavern.
We’re all already here, though we are not yet connoisseurs.
Terrified of spilling our cup we cling onto our leaves,
Swaying in a tranquil breeze.

When will we finish being terrified and become happy?

When men throw away their stick guns.

Truly understand how fragile their glass is.
Unfold from their pink bud,
Run laughing into the street crying,
“Brother, It’s good to be here!”

Laughter

An old couple were taking a walk

Along the riverbank
When, around the next bend in the river,
Beside a tree they saw an
Odd looking man sat cross-legged
On the floor, alone and laughing, his
Eyes screwed up with laughter,
His thin frame shaking with the delight.

Ignoring their initial impulse to

Keep away from the strange man,
The couple walked on by him.
He barely acknowledged their presence,
But kept on laughing by himself,
Swaying like corn in the sun.
“Morning there,” announced the walkers,
“What’s so funny?”
The odd man glanced up at them,
Eyes streaming, mouth as wide
As the very river itself.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” He replied, in-between chuckles,
“I was just looking.
Really looking,
I have looked for so long I can hardly help but laugh.

“I have been looking at the river for days.

Look how it drains water from the
Mountains and brings it here
So I can put my feet in it.”
He laughed again, his whole body vibrating.

He picked up a leaf that was travelling

Downstream, held it before the walkers,
“Look,” He exclaimed with bursting joy,
“Look at the veins on the leaf
They channel energy to all parts
Of the leaf so it can get on with
The business of carrying out the world’s
Single most important chemical reaction.”
He dropped the leaf back into
The flowing stream,
Waving to it,
“Goodbye little leaf.”

Everywhere, things are moving

From their centres, seeping out, spreading,
Dancing and whirling around.
It’s like the universe is waltzing.
Yet there is an opposite force
That yearns for structure and consistency,
Aims to stop the seepage and the
Spreading, desires order and choreography.
This inwards and outwards tension,
Between order and chaos,
This cosmic tango,
Is the source of
Life.

The strange crossed-legged man

Erupted into another laughing fit,
Beamed up at the walkers,
“The river, the leaf veins, it’s cells,
All are transmitting energy.
Should I go on, deeper and smaller?
Underneath, the fabric of which
All is woven is no more than vibrating
Strings of energy.
So, when such an intricate dance
Is being played out before my very eyes
How can I help but laugh
Uncontrollably?”

The elderly walkers, a little stunned,

Laughed uncertainly, about to respond
When suddenly the remarkable
Little man began shedding tears
Not of laughter but of
Chronic and cavernous sadness.
His smile turned to a frown,
His eyes spoke of utter despair.

“What now?” said the walkers.

“Oh, I’m so, so sorry” wept the man.

“I just remembered that in the five minutes
You’ve been stood up there listening
To me, many many acres of life-filled
Forest have been felled with nothing
But bare earth left in its wake.
I can’t say…
How each tree….
It hurts…
Each leaf…
Leave me now I have to mourn.”

Tears poured down his cheeks.

Such is the lightness and weight
Felt by those who see God
Working continuously
Around them.

Returning

I am separated from the one

I love. I am walking around not knowing
Where I am going. I toss and turn
Instead of sleeping because
I cannot feel nor hear you there.

The pain of separation is a sore one.

The caged bird remembers the mountains.
The dying leaves dream of their budding days.
The lonely oak in the corner of the field
Longs for the ages of the vast forests.

I look for you behind windows and doors

Just in case you’re hiding there.
I go for long walks in the evenings
So that I might run into you.
I read books within which I think
Your name might be written. I cry out your name
But get no response. Is there a special
Call that brings you to the door?

I want to return. Return where?

To the primeval forests, the wilderness.
The original garden.
There you’ll be- radiant and waiting.
The scholars all tell us that wilderness
Does not exist, that it is a cultural
Invention. Nowhere left to go that has not
Felt the human hand, however indirectly.

Yet the wild still summons me.

Hand in hand with you, I will delve
Deeper into the forest then anyone has ever
Delved, through a ruined archway of tree
Branches that no one noticed before.

Into the green realm, the throbbing heart

Of the world where trees are still silent
Lords who witness the passing centuries
With tranquil certainty, and elks, bears and bison
Maintain a court of justice, of peace.

I wander the city’s streets but I feel as though

I am walking on thin air. Am I the grindstone
Spinning endlessly, thinking of the rock
From which I was cut? Why am I spinning?
I’m dizzy! Who is this grinder?
I cannot see your face but know you’re here,
You were there at the rock-face too.
Always there- working calmly underneath the surface.

We’re in the green realm. The two

Of us. It took us a long time to get here.
We’ve made our shelter out of clods
Of earth and dead wood. We meet with
The elk, the bear and the bison. Learn forest lore.

No suffering here, my love. No lies,

No frauds, no grading, no prejudice, no hatred,
No racism, no greed, no selfishness. The flower
That has just awoken next to the sunny
Brook on a dew covered morning
Doesn’t know anything of these.

Don’t believe that we’ll ever be there?

Close your eyes. See it now?

We’re like two spinning grindstones.

But when the world stops still and
Our focus returns we’ll stop yearning.
We’ll be shrouded in the green realm
And separated no longer,
My love.

Closing

I opened, unaware of this world.

Naïve, a patient hand nurtured me from the soil.
I transformed, took leave of the trellis
That had been erected to support me.
I found my freedom, reached out with
My thin, tender stems to feel the sun.
I grew, looking everywhere for that light.
With the passing seasons I became bolder,
Put on a passionate display. Violent floral reds.
But inside me, in my roots and follicles,
I felt empty. I witnessed foliage to the
left and right of me dying, shrivelling up.
I felt feeble. Then I came to acknowledge
My impermanence. I was a fragile being,
Just a straw, not even that. Then began my
Laughing days. I laughed as the leaves
Turned brown and the days shorter. Laughing,
As I knew I was dissolving, returning to
The soil. Now I am folding.
I am closing.
I’m here.
Thank you for reading

Benjamin Major 2007

complexitybenjamin@hotmail.com

Both photos taken by Joanna Bertzeletos