02 Forgiveness 108 Longer Poems Poem by Saiom Shriver

CRADLE ROCKED

When the pond was smashed
by his clenched fist..
it became a cradle rocking
for little fish.

Anger is the ore for lovegold.

MAGNIFICAT

Is the painting less beautiful
because it's a forgery of Van Gogh's?
Is sunset lakemirrored less awesome
because not originally lake glows
Does the moon deny in the night
that unstolen is her light?

THE RIVER TARRIES NOT

The river tarries not
over the stones of karma.
To seaward joyfully running
is her destiny's dharma

TECUMSEH MUSEUM ON A HIGH HILL

A Tecumseh museum.. on a high
hill.. full of axes, scalps
and knives..
Someone enters and
walks around opening all
the shutters..
light pours in
One is then
aware.. only of the
supernal radiance.

And from the high hill
distance one sees puffs
from many chimneys.. all
smoking the pipes of peace.

(Native Americans had much
more to forgive than colonists,
in writers's humble opinion)

CONNECT THE DOTS

When I asked my father not to fish
I did not connect to the meat on my plate.
When I saw the film Mondo Kane I did not connect
When I saw the cow on the high school blackboard
marked with dotted lines I did not connect those dots
When I saw the picture magazine with a hyena's face frozen
in terror right before he was killed by a lion I did not connect
When I met a vegetarian I resisted
The different chambers of my brain did not speak to each other.
I now forgive myself.. for having been unripe fruit..
hard and green…unconscious… unawakened to suffering.

ICICLE POINT

The frozen daggers of
unforgiveness..
icicles..
shine in the light
but it is the orb
of forgiveness
.. the miracle
point at the drip
of the icicle tip
which reflects the sun

INVISIBLE GARLAND

Each of us wears an invisible
garland of skulls.. for all
the souls we have in this
or other lives killed, injured,
neglected, for all those beings
whose hearts we have hurt.

God's mercy sometimes
instantly, sometimes through
centuries, turns all the skulls
to jewels.

CROATIAN CREATION

Crocuses are blowing
with the news..
cows are crowing it
and frogs are croaking it..

A most sacred place
in all Creation
is the forgiving ground
of Bosnian Serb & Croatian

SEACHANGE IN HEART WATERS

There are signs of the tide's inrush
as the gulls come closer..
as the sound of waves lapping brings
peace
.. and in the waters of the heart
is a subtle seachange

VIOLET ME

As the sun poured into
her niches and naves
and
her coves and her caves
Mother Earth cried
'You violate me! '

But weeks went by
and she spied
April's apricot apron
and apple blooms
and then she exclaimed
'You violet me! '

(to a quiet saint, Nita Nickol)

NIAGARA FALLS

Two rock divided branches of the
same river of God
approach a cliff.
They are not waterfall foes.
They do not each other oppose.

As each roars over the cliffside,
unhurt they emerge as one,
some drops rising as mist
to bless riparian trees.
Made of the Mist
are new leaves.

(to the people of the United States and Canada)

TWO NEGATIVES A POSITIVE MADE

As two negatives when multiplied
a positive do make
.. former foes who seek
each others' good
cause miracles forth to break

BEING KIND

Those who refuse to harm
the hearts of others
with humor involving
ridicule or cruelty
or searing revenge
.. are able to call
on the aid of the guardian
angels and parents
who do not forgive
as quickly as their
human charges.

SILVER SCREEN PROJECTION

She never feels rejection
by others' projection..
as they describe their
own faces..
found in her soulmirror's
reflection…
when they cast
their negative movies
upon her luminous silver
screen. Its very purity
invites the process..
as a blank page invites
pen scrawl.
as a sea receives
rivers. Slowly
others learn it is their
own movies on her screen..
their own faces in her mirror.

(to MSC)

BALL TO BALLOON

The ball got lighter and lighter
as she shed more and more
of her past insides....
until she became an invulnerable
balloon.. and soared away
wherever she wished
.. alighting again
whenever she wished

GREAT UNCLE

He was able to forgive
the hunter who shot
his great uncle
in the woods
when angels gave him
a dream.. showing that
the hunter had
let his uncle out
of earth jail…
and ushered him
into the world
of ecstasy.

ALTARS OMNIPRESENT

In doubt or
hesitation
do not falter
at Abba's
omnipresent altars
where
God forgives
all us knaves,
all defaulters

IF YOU

If you do now
your heart unlock
I promise in the future
I will knock

ICICLES

Our enemies..
they were huge
daggar icicles
hanging up high
.. ready at the
slightest sound
to crack down

Time passed..
they dripped
and grieved
at their own
passing

More time passed
.. they glow
in the morning sun
.. crystal..
exclamation points
of joy
with drops at the
bottom

Now all the ice
is gone
.. water no longer
caged by frozen
form

STAR SHAPED SCARS

As she began to focus
on the grace rather
than the pain

Each little scar
turned to miracle star

BOUGH

God looks upon
a broken vow
as on a river not
clinging to
bough

BRIGHT GOLD FIELDS

Within the husk
are bright seeds
containing future
gold fields of corn

Just so God grows
joy's bright kernels
inside the husks
of cruel scorn

DIVINE PAINT

The blue paint
of the third eye
cannot be chipped
away..
The blue eraser
of the 3rd eye
cannot be overlaid
It cancels all
mistakes of the past
.. all dark portraits

HEATHER

The falling snow erases
the criminal's footprint traces
The seas do not record
the weedcleaving swords
of the unknowing oared....
nor does the heather neath
highland mist
seek to remember the
heavy tread
which for wee moments
crushed
her violet head

(to H Schofield)

FORGIVING FOREGIVING

To forgive
is to release
to let go
to fore-give
to give first.

FLOW INTO FOE

When you can flow
into your foe
and witness his
most bright soulglow
love replaces
the wavering
of to and fro

SCARLET LEAVES ORANGE BERRIES

We passed a scarlet leafed
orange berried bush
..crimson leaves anger hued
support the monk- detachment
saffron- colored berries

HE IS CHANGING

You cannot see how he is changing
He is a growing baby eagle
with an unmoving shell
and within him does unseen
the force of Godlove swell.
He is water melting within
the towering iceberg spires
He is coldform becoming formless
through the touch of GodSunFire.
He is the April
leaf ready to unfold
.. which will calyx the fruit
as it turns to gold

CANCELLED STAMPS

God can forgive even
a general's or president's
millions of caused deaths
more quickly than Winston
Churchill's
image on a stamp
can be cancelled… once
a heart decides never
again to cause suffering.

TO UNDERSTAND ALL IS TO FORGIVE ALL

He who rescues an ox
from a ditch might
be muddy for a time
as the lake in which
the lion washed his blood
is for a while
crimson with his anger.

VIETNAM

The soul humbling forgiveness
of the Vietnamese
brings our hearts
to our bending knees

OARCLEFT

Birds have oerleapt
the sea oarcleft.
But she has
not been harmed

Bee has petals
of clover cloven
but she has
not been harmed


THE STONED WOMAN

The stones at her thrown
have become the cornerstones
of her Divine Love throne.

CHERISH THE CHERRYSTONES

Cherish the
hard cherrystones
.. inside each is
scarlet lettered code
They are
.. the crimson chariots
of future
cherries
transformed into rubies
by the
sun's cheer..
for every Chinawoman
and Cherokee
.. every child
young or old
For them.. every year
is a jubilee

(to Patty and Charles D)
(writer was ignorant of
cherrystones as a word
for suffocated clams)

RAM DASS

The Asian Indian Ram Dass
says that good and evil
are a projection of my mind.
Therefore it is myself
I must forgive.

KIND SURGEONS

there are kind surgeons
who stitch up sturgeons
and release them to the open seas
when the high tides are surgin

THE SUN AND THE MUDCLOD

The sun did shine in 360
degrees.. blessing all with her
rays.. one particular clod of
mud.. refused her love.. did
not answer the door to her radiant
silent knock.. did not.. the
gate of his clodheart unlock..
so she held back one of her
infinite rays.. but after a while
realized that it was silly
to waste energy..
and so let her rays shine
in all directions as before. Letting go
caused more energy to flow:
And the mudclud, the hundredth lamb..
did eventually his heart unlock.

PEACE TEMPLE LIGHTNING

Carved in stone in the Peace Temple
was ‘those who live by the sword
shall perish by the sword'
but the caretaker of that temple
had so learned his lessons that
.. a God-dispatched lightning
bolt.. erased those words
and wrote in their place
'Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

FISHNET FORGIVEN

The fishing net has
straightened out
.. and become a dreamcatcher

(to J Lehman and his work)

ARIZONA RAIN

The feathers of the Phoenix
bird are not always
flakes of fire..
sometimes they are mercy's
falling waterdrops

NINTH STEP

She was very upset to find that the
woman to whom she wanted to make amends
had died.. Later she found
that by miracle.. a friend
had made amends for her.

BEYOND CRIMSON SCARS

Above earth's crimson scars
shine the diamond stars
Beyond earth's greyest clouds
shines the great sunstar
Beneath his angry mouth
beats his peaceful heart
A paradox is it
.. that his angry words
are written with the ink
of love

HATE METASTASIZES

Revenge destroys
the brain with fire
It is terror and cancer
cells' multiplier
.. the great
metastasizer…
We choose to focus
on the rose rather than
on the thorny briars

FORWARD BUTTERFLY

The butterfly does
not look back
to the cocoon
of caterpillar.
She does not
want to be
a Lot's wife...
bitter salt pillar

WILL I EVER BE

Will I ever be
like the peony
which responds to storms
heavensent
by gifting all with
her sweet scent? ..

LAVA TURNS TO JEWELS

She the sea
.. receives red hot
lava
and transmutes it
into green glass jewels.

She the listening compassionate
ear turns anger into love.

(to Lois Lichty who spoke only
of the good in others)

PRAYER

Thank You
for Your descent
Holy Spirit.. Dove
with Your transforming
Touch of Love
in the heart of each
killing general and
judge
prosecutor and gov
and of each of us
and our loves

PLANTS FORGIVE

Some day
the acacia leaves
will forgive giraffes
and in the presence
of koala bears
bamboo shoots will laugh
.. the cows will
be welcomed by
each blade of grass

SNOWMEN

'Snowmen dropp unassembled from the sky' *
some created by sculpting child's play
.. their life models men frozen into cruelty by
pain

*(said the anonymous email..)

DEWdropp METAMORPHOSIS

The hanging ice daggers
slowly drip drip drip
and one by one they
do drop
until finally the last
one.. melts and plops..
some day.. it will
be dewdrops

BLUEPRINTS AND WIND

Of our past transgressions..
The Divine Wind away blew prints
and the Sun made reality
of wish blue prints

TO UNDERSTAND AN AGENT IS
TO FORGIVE HER OR HIM

Some agents were threatened physically
or their loved ones threatened.
Some were released early from
jail in exchange for services.
Others had hearts' desires for
money, addictions, a person
etc dangled in front of them

NONDUALISTS
FORGIVING GOD

Nondualists who think that
God is the only Doer..
believe that God is the only one
they need forgive.

SHADOWS SCURRY

Entities who the dark
path represent
do forgiven images
re-present.
They scurry away
when
the Name of God
is present.

GOD IS GUILTY

If God is the only Doer
then..even a killer is an actor
saying his preordained lines

CONNECTING THE SYNAPSES

When Kissinger declines to hunt boar with Brezhnev
but arranges the bombing of Vietnamese.. this is a disconnect
in the chambers of his heart

When Churchill directs a ladybug to be saved
and bombs millions, . this is
a disconnect in the chambers of his heart

When Hitler directs that animals be freed
from the Berlin Zoo during the bombing
but kills millions.. this is a disconnect
in the chambers of his heart

Howard Zinn speaks of the disconnect
of bomber pilots who cannot
hear the screams, smell the blood
nor see the limbs being blown
off.. as they are 30,000 feet up

When people stand in freezing cold
for peace.. and then go home
to dead bodies on the dinner plate
this is a disconnect

When teachers show their
cooking classes graphs
of animals divided into
steaks.. it is a disconnect

All these illustrate the disconnect
of distance.. they cannot kill
whom they know but can
objectify beings they do not know

A soul ripe wil not attack
but only in sweetness attract.
It's not sin or lapse
but disconnected synapse

GRASS SEED

She often had to plant
grass seed where
her volcanic explosions
had occurred.

TAN

Dracula was running
from the dawn
.. on vines he tripped
and by temple dogs
was trapped
.. and found as the
sun rose
that he too by Sunlove
was tanned

EDITING

It is easier to
edit what is written
on paper than what is
carved in stone.
Easier still to edit
what is written on
sand or water.

RED DRESS

Unforgiving..
a desire for redress
It is good to shed
vengeance' red dress

THUNDERSTORM

His storm
in the fruitladen
tree released
her grace gifts
early.

RADIUS RIVER

The radius river
moved..
fanning into a delta
before becoming
the circle sea

LIGHTNING SWORDS

As swords of lightning
cannot cleave the sky
the personality cannot harm
the God in which it lies

FEMORAL

On pot he looked down
at the chicken bones
femoral
of innocent birds
with lives so ephemeral
and decided from the
moment of that day
to attempt nonviolence
in every way

CHILDREN OF KAISER

When her pluto-ruled
underground springs
upwelled into Sagittarian
joy geysers
she was able to forgive
Nazi children of the Kaiser

TREE TEMPLE ROSEBUSH RIGHTS

To destroy a present tree temple
is akin to pulling down a living tree…
to resurrect old rocks..
…or to a psychopath killing
an ‘illegitimate' child..

PUPPETEER

Those who believe
God is the only Doer
believe that the Puppeteer
punishes His puppets.

FORGIVING MYSELF FOR UNCONSCIOUSNESS

In the days before 1968
I stood for peace
but sat down to violence
.. vigiled for an end to war
and dined on blood turned juice.

UNIVERSAL

His posts were
usually off topic
and quite misanthropic
but they forgave him
and invited him back
to their paradise in
the tropics

VICTORY OVER TIME

As the physical magnetism
of some can affect wrist watches
so the spiritual magnetism
of the holy
can erase time's karma

HEART OF THE DEER

A tiny percentage
stalked the deer
to eat their hearts
But billions worked
to guard
the love flowing
from those hearts

(in the US, less than
4% of the population hunt..
hunters are down one third
among those 18 to 24)

DEICIDE IS IMPOSSIBLE

The neonazi changed.
He did decide
that if God is light
noone can commit deicide

NO HARM NO FOUL

A message bottled
within each sparkling sunbeam..
‘no harm, no foul'
because it's a dream.

WOLLESLEY BEAR

I promise you Wollesley
Bear.. wherever you are
.. that next time I brake
for a butterfly
I'll make sure you
have your seatbelt
on

(Wollesley Bear, temporarily
in golden retriever form)

SNOWS OF THE MOUNTAIN CRAGS

As mountain crags do
hold the snow
though on it mightily
the sun does glow
so does it longer take
for some souls
to release pain which
long ago froze

FRUIT OF CRITICISM

What is the fruit of criticism?
The receiver's heart shuts down.
There is an urge to counterattack.
The ego and the heart are intertwined
so both feel judged and begin
to marshal defenses and to attack.

(Thaddeus Golas: 'In response to
pain, expand')

FORGIVE ME LITTLE VIOLETS

Forgive me, little violets,
that in smelling lilacs
I did unconsciously step on
your shy little heads..
with of sensitivity a lack.

AS MOTHER LOOKS ON A TODDLER'S FALL

God looks on error
as a mother looks on a toddler's fall*
.. or on her young son making mudballs*
as the sun
gazes upon sour fruit soon to be sweet*
.. or upon a blow which releases
water from ice freezes

God does not send loved ones to hell
for acting on drives from the outer shell

God is more forgiving
than the daily snowfall which
erases
many human footfall traces
.. more forgiving than
the sea
which holds onto no boat wake
.. more forgiving than
the sky..
which forgets the path of clouds
or the fire
which devours the mistakes of
the past

Divine Love made us
.. anything which is not
of Divine Love
.. is not you.. is not me

FLOTILLA OF BIRDS

On the lake float
a flotilla of all direction flying
birds
neath a flotilla of 1 direction
clouds..

Some had landed first on ice
.. others differently upon the
water

.. In February Mother Earth
forgives sooner than
Father Water..but he too
will melt

DEBT ERASED

It had snowed
and the criminal's
footprints showed
the path to him.

However it was the
same snow.. knowing
he had changed
.. which again fell
erasing the tracks
to a judicial hell

FEBRUARY

A sudden February freeze
arrested the raindrops
on the branch
like a snapshot..
stopped them in their flow
..
but the afternoon sun frees
drops from the morning freeze
… gone the frost
nothing was lost

DIFFERENT RIVER

We are rivers who have changed
in this second..
some of us all has emptied
into the sea..
some is being renewed
in headwaters.

PENTACLES MELT IN THIRD EYE

In meditation he watched
black pentacles
melt in the cobalt blue
of the third eye

and knew someone's
past karma was being
erased

GOD KEEPS NO FILES

God keeps no files
on reformed pedophiles
.. Spirit
creates learning
situations..
with action's consequences..
but God sees
all bodies
as Divine Love phials
and can each soul
undefile
as She erases
all prison files

BOUND BY LOVE

2 former competitors
for the same man,
not yet aware of their
eternal spirit love
for each other
were yet bound
by their love for him

FROM ANY POINT ON THE WHEEL

God can catapult someone
from the most fallen states
into liberation.. while
another remains stuck
in orbital shells
not realizing his
complacence is a hell

33 DEGREE WATER

33 degree water
can be colder than 32 degree ice
for it is not barred
from entering the skin

When Cancer forgives
cancer can disappear

PATIENT TREES

Patient trees
receiving the blows
of elephant tusks, lovers' initialing
knives, ‘pruning' shears, moose antlers,
lightning bolts, tornado winds,
utility axes, lumbermen's chain saws

never themselves holding up
branches defensively to fend
off the blows

CLEMENCY

I ask you tenderly
to grant me clemency
as polluted rivers' tendencies
are purified in clement sea.

COLD GOLD

The people's land
was given to the mineowners
at firesale prices.
They hired slaves at
less than minimum wage…
and when the fire
at their deathtrap mine
took the lives of many
it refined
the cold gold.

LOVING FOES

God told us to love our
neighbor as ourselves.
Jesus told us to love our
enemies.
Therefore we are told
to love our enemy as ourselves.

RELEASE THE WASTE

The body should not hold onto
toxic waste
nor should the mind or soul
cling to past hates.

ABOVE FREEZING

To frost had firmed the fog
which veiled the cranberry bog
but now iced crystal jewels
melt into Spirit's drops

LIQUID DECK OF CARDS

Iceberg spires and turrets of
crystallized pain
melt in warm waters
off the coast of Spain.

FOUR ELEMENTS

God's water washes away transgressions.
God's fire burns errors to ash.
God's earth buries mistakes.
God's air scatters them
into harmless fragments.

GREEDY CATERPILLAR

Eric Carle sees
greed as a hungry caterpillar.
May I see it that way too: a voracious
caterpillar soon to cocoon
himself til his own transmutation
..the devoured sacrificed
green leaves of spring
turned to translucent
feathery invulnerable wings

(sparked by Eric Carle's book
The Very Hungry Caterpillar)

ICEBERG

Paradoxically an iceberg overhang
is more dangerous when melting than
when frozen. As evil is breaking
up it can be more unstable
and threatening. The wise
avoid proximity in such
cases.

PEAR TREE RESPONSE

The dump truck with driveby violence
slapped the pear
tree in her branch face
releasing a shower
of her sweet fruit grace
as a holy one responds
to hate with love
moving onward
in his Godward race

PRAYING FOR FOES

Durga decided to pray for a foe.
That night God came to her in the
form of her foes, giving her an answer
to a riddle upon which she'd been working.

GUZZLING BEE

Embezzled heart, can you forgive the guzzling bee
who has taken all your nectar? 'He knew not what he did',
young little bee.

DESPERATE

Those in despair do desperate things.
Indeed, the word 'desperate' comes
from 'despair'.

MOONLIGHT WHITEWASHING THE SEA

Aboard the ocean liner they see
moonlight whitewashing the sea
as do glances and shadows
of saints
in goldwashing our stains
pour radiant absolution
everywhere

UNIVERSAL AMNESTY

God's universal verdict
is 'Not guilty'
as all blessing as the
late afternoon sun
ever gilding trees

WHO KILLED THE GIANT SNOWMAN?

Who has the giant snowman killed?
he who has all around him chilled?
Was it the one who threw pots of
hot liquid upon him?
or the rainclouds who sacrificed
their being pouring their waters
upon him?
or the sun whose rays
were swords knocking off
different of his parts?

Now he is many drops of water
.. pooling at his former base
.. each dropp reflecting
the sun he had hated

COBRA LIBERATOR

The bite of a cobra
awakened him from a nightmare
dream
to an awakened world
through which sunbeams gleam
And he saw
that he was not
a ray of the Sun..
but the Sun itself
and with God One.
Then he was able
to thank the snake.

GREAT BEAR FREE

The sun has melted
a trespassing bear's pawprints
near a beehive's honey
storehouse.. frozen
in the snowlace.
Free now the great
bear prince.

LES MISERABLES NO LONGER
MISERABLES

Melt away now Valjean's pursuers,
who had chased him through Parisian sewers

IGNORANT SWORD

As a sword has the illusion it slices the sun's beams
so do the unforgiving have the illusion they have been harmed.

MULBERRIES

The bike rolled through the
mulberries on the sidewalk
leaving several purple streaks..
but some of the tree's babes
fell into the meadow..
and became new mulberry trees

(trees whose silkworms were
protected)

********************************************


a humble request:
please print from the web on rice, cotton, scrap, nontree paper, or 100% recycled emily dickinson: a whiplash unbraiding in the sun (unconditional love unties the knots of resentment) for the sake of sentient trees and their resident flightless baby birds and squirrels please use cotton rice or other less violent paper in print outs from the web

'God looks on Sin' includes 2 of sai baba's parables and a dream of j freundschuh stars in 'as mother looks on a toddler's fall' are based on the teachings of sai baba as is the parable that we should be like rivers flowing over sharp rocks tecumseh museum is to all native americans and settlers who have suffered in the past) (years after dreamer had this dream on the early morn of december 7 she heard broadcast on c span a description of a mohican museum.. followed by the song you are my sunshine) mallik arjunan: from any point on the wheel one can be liberated notes on as mother looks on a toddler's fall.. title based on a quote by saint of shirdi.. mudballs based on a dream by jan f (we are all tecumsehs: look not at our past but at the divine light within each of us as we forgive ourselves) * the stars indicate concepts transmitted to writer by the words of sai baba silver screen projection is to susie m c if you is to t jackson

footnotes:

saint of shirdi: never harm a snake or
a scorpion.. he will only harm you if ordered
to do so by god. if so ordered there is nothing
you can do about it

anne perry: when people are close sooner or later they will hurt
each other.

jan f: i was being told to take my complaint to the playwright, not
the half brain-dead actor on the stage.