“Remember this: I do not have
A name or face, or form,
And words and paint prolong the lie
That I can be depicted: I am beyond
All sense of what ‘beyond’ can mean.
To know me you must close your eyes
And leave the road of affirmation,
The road of thinking and imagining:
Just be a pilgrim to yourself,
Alert, not knowing where to go,
But trusting in your ignorance
And travelling inward all the time.
Watch out for clues and signs – observe
The spirals of your thoughts,
The interlace of hopes and fears,
The circles of your good intentions
Revolving ineffectually,
The nibbling mice of jealousy
And hissing serpent of resentment –
Just watch your convoluting self
Proliferate without your intervening
Until it dies away to nothing
But silence and a glowing stillness,
As a stone exudes warm summer light;
And in that pregnant emptiness
You may just glimpse me
But only unexpectedly
Like a half glance at a sunshaft
Erupting in a neighbouring field;
And if you see me you’ve become
The unstained love you sought in me –
Then who is who?
The eyes through which you see are mine.”