I read his book of poems last year,
A Stone Worn to Sand, and this is one of my favorites:
La Corpa Dia
(My Body) for Rumi
At my birth, time and space began.
When I choose to cease my existence, time and space will end.
Space is the extent of my body.
Time is the span of my life.
I am everything, Space, Time, Light and Gravity.
Nothing has come into existence except through me.
There is nothing that is not me.
I am all that is, and all that will ever be.
Beyond the death of this body I alone exist.
The cells of my body
are galactic clusters made up of sub-atomic solar systems.
The expansion of galaxies is like the blossoming of flowers,
and supernova are like shooting stars.
To me, the Human life span is as brief as the sub-atomic particle’s.
I am consciousness.
There is nothing in my body I am not conscious of.
My consciousness pervades even to the smallest particle.
I am the silent ocean.
I am darkness waiting
endlessly to embrace you wholly.
Bottomless and with no shore.
In me, you will have no foothold, and no place to grasp.
I will embrace you totally.
If you struggle against me
you will only become exhausted.
I will hold you up,
and when you reach for the density of Earth
I will not hold you back.
I am yielding.
When you come out of me
I will fall away, brooding your inevitable
return.
I am the pull of emptiness.
We talked about his book of poems in a post and he wrote:
I am honored, Michel, that you would read my poetry. Yes, La Corpa Dia, is one of my favorite poems. The first half of the book is my dark night of the soul, so I can see how it might be difficult to read. The poem is one of my attempts to described the 8th stage of the religious experience (Nevasannanasannnayatana). The poem has numerous tropes in it that repeat throughout the book from beginning to end. And the book, Stone Worn to Sand, is meant to be a poetic description of the path to liberation and enlightenment.
Stu, you have inspired me to read his book of poems again. So thank-you.