On The Other Shore

Bobby BeauSoleil

(written 2011; revised 2020)

 

A song for the dead, those precious souls I have known in life

who left this world ahead of me, and especially in honor of Gary Allen Hinman.

 

My dear brother, lost so long ago

I search for you in dream

A vastness so high, far and wide

and deep as eternity

… deep as eternity

 

Your silent gaze pierces into me

yet you can't see what I’ve become

You couldn't know the hell I've seen

or how Heaven has touched me

… oh how heaven has touched me

 

I prayed a prayer you would forgive

that terrible way I broke you

My answer came that you had no need

to forgive when you had never blamed

… when you had never blamed

 

(chorus: )  Lay me down, lay me down gently

lay me down on the other shore

Lay me down, lay me down gently

lay me down on the other shore

… lay me down on the other shore

 

My beloved, we dance in the lovelight

twirling and laughing like children

Hearts afire, a beating of drums

Holy song, we are its melody

… we are its melody

 

Blindly we leapt, hearts in our hands

into a fearsome storm

We meant to show the people some new ways

and oh the price we would pay

… oh the price we would pay

 

Without a warning, you were suddenly gone

like a curl of smoke in a breeze

In this world we wept, while the angels rejoiced

We must find one another again

… we must find one another again

 

(chorus: ) Lay me down, lay me down gently

lay me down on the other side

Lay me down, lay me down gently

lay me down on the other side

… lay me down on the other shore

 

Body and soul, I ache for tender mercies

sweet water to ease my thirst

a kind hand to stroke my brow

and to bathe me in blamelessness

… bathe me in blamelessness

 

I fly at last like an arrow

into the heart of the mystery

birthless, deathless, where nothing is not

and all is held in a word

… all is held in a word

 

Bear me up on wings of love

carry me high above the carnival

far beyond stagnant seas of regret

and across the chasm of pain

… across the chasm of pain

 

(chorus: ) And lay me down, lay me down gently

lay me down on the other shore

Lay me down, lay me down gently

lay me down on the other shore

... Lay me down on the other shore

 

 

 

Dark Night

Bobby BeauSoleil

 

dark night

bright star

reflection of home

heart's desire

head below the flying bullets

held high above the world's madness

peace peace peace

 

 

The Word

Bobby BeauSoleil

 

In the vastness of the unmanifest

nothing does not exist

Lightless and shadowless

the brilliant radiance

of consciousness

permeates all being

and all seeming to be

Oneself unfurling.

to the limits of limitlessness

Unborn and undead

Unmoving and unshakeable

Foundation to the thrones

of elder gods and goddesses

Seat of empire

Ground of chaos

The witness to every thought and deed

 

And out of this infinite sea

of purest potential

all manifest reality arises

dancing

beginningless and endless

upon the Word

 

And the Word … Is

 

 

In the Space Between Breaths

Bobby BeauSoleil

 

Keeping his timeless silent vigil

the sentinel sits tall in the saddle

casting a long shadow on the plane

of a dimension betwixt losing and finding out

unfazed by the din of lost souls

howling and screaming like monkeys

for the attention of mothers now ghosts

 

A bereft bighouse sparrow

chirps incessantly his staccato call

for a mate or just a friend

a rival if it comes to that

his chirruping echoes down the long hall

it almost seems that he is answered

so he flies its length to see

the one he seeks just out of view

 

 A world seen through grimy windows

offering promises long unkept

sunbeams play on cobwebs and old paint

making cave paintings on manmade stone

and imposter fireflies from the dust motes

like those pesky persistent thoughts

rattling in the skull like wooden beads

offerings to be burned on the altar of the heart

 

Wandering the bowels of labyrinthine dream

one good turn deserves a hundred more

until finding the door to escape at last

only to awaken in another dream

where the joke pretending to be peace

is a masquerade for the gap between wars

glories sublime in unimaginable horror

the history games of desire and suffering

 

The sentinel observes it all unblinking

unmoved by pleas for intervention

by desire for winning or fear of failing

the parade of fools unrecognizing

the seeker’s search for truth unchanging

knowing the peace without an opposite

there to be found in the immensity of space

between the falling and rising of breath

 

 

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