OVERTURE

The following poem was written by Laurissa

HAPPINESS IS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED

this moment of presence is infinite
in it’s fleeting, elusive permanence
all directions radiate out from center
from Now all connections with all beings
alive even in this silky silence
where full moon light scarcely penetrates clouds
and bats circle me without sound

a house holding me
me holding space solid as stones
weightless as feathers
of which I am the same
I would release every thing
every thought, every memory, every belief
that forms me
let sunlight be my name
until water claims me again
for desire I cannot release

who would it be that I am
imagining looking so deeply into me
whose eyes can hold my untamed gaze
and let me enter without resistance
leaving past and future, stress and projection
leaving the scurrying mind
in the center of a wet spring meadow
in glorious rich greens
where they shall consume themselves
as we turn and walk without looking back

I do not know the name of what comes for me
nor why I resist
I know the sounds and memories that ache and echo
and that rarest beauty emerging from inconceivable loss
but I don’t know if anyone hears
the songs we sing alone
nor how far I shall wander to receive the seeds
my body will transform and birth
into still other forms of intelligent light
I do not know how I became this dance

so I walk the river at night, denying sleep
because an awakening demands it’s moments
feeling the effortless rise and fall of my chest
as I take and release the invisible
in all these words my lips remain together
I endlessly circle around the One
I will not utter or write
for tonight I fear to reduce
the miraculous to banality
the mystery of all presence united
by gossamer filaments of indestructible
indefinable actuality
I reach out for words as forming
shapes in the air before me
to convey and comprehend these waves
undulating through the space I am
and then lay them aside
as they fade back to formless

returning to the ancient symphony
where all space and time
explode in wonderment