Metaphysical Sestina

It is difficult to know what is real.
You can't rely on what you think or feel;
Our likes, dislikes, and views change over time.
Ev'rything you touch, taste, see, smell, or hear,
Ev'rything you love, ev'rything you fear,
Ev'rything that exists will disappear.

One day I won't be here, I'll disappear;
Perhaps then I'll come to know what is real,
What lies beyond anxiety and fear.
In the presence of beauty I can feel,
Like a whisper that I can almost hear,
A river flowing where there is no time.

We measure the forward progress of time
And watch as friends, one by one, disappear,
Though sometimes, in daydreams, we can still hear
Them. Those voices from the past seem more real
Than the daily things that I touch and feel
Or the passing news that gives rise to fear.

Our lives are laced with dukkha, laced with fear;
We're running from the avalanche of time,
(The therapist says, "How's that make you feel?")
But there's one thing which does not disappear,
One thing which cannot be sensed, yet is real,
Beyond our sight, beyond what we can hear.

In deepest silence what is it you hear?
In total stillness what is there to fear?
Dwelling in the grotto of what is real,
Dwelling in the grotto prior to time,
What could arrive and what could disappear?
What could be known and what is there to feel?

Ten thousand years to a mountain will feel
Like a melody that you briefly hear,
Though all things vanish, all things disappear,
In the grotto of eternity there is nothing to fear,
Beyond the passing years, beyond the seething stream of time,
There is the sublime and formless presence of what is real.

Turn to what is real, beyond what we feel,
Before all time, a song we barely hear,
A luminous land where all fears disappear.


Jim Wilson
Copyright 2014
All rights reserved.