I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
and I have been circling for a thousand years,
and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
or a great song.
— Rilke
Hi, I’m Graham—just some kum-ba-yah hack poet-philosopher of sorts exploring the very quiet Mother Earth, Father sky side of wild Christianity in my essays and poems.
I heard a story a few years ago of a bunch dirty, dreadlocked hippies at the Burning Man festival, of all places, spontaneously praying the Jesus Prayer, without ever having been Orthodox, or even Christian, and when I heard that story, something in the cave of my heart twanged like some rainforest harp, and I furiously and effortlessly wrote a poem, which goes like this:
BURNING MAN
christianity hangs dead for me
until i remember
the children of the burning heart
out in the irradiant sands
of the American southwest crying out
lord jesus christ, son of god, son of god
.dreadlocks billowing in elemental winds
like the wild manes of boxcar children
strung out on El Shaddai,
most high,
the beautiful barefoot mamas
like eve coming naked
from the lungs of adam asleep
in divine ecstasy
or the mother of cain on hands & knees
sniffing like a lioness
after the wild roots of EdenI love that stuff, man, I love it—I recognize such kindred spirits in these people, a kind of collective dirtbag Prometheus stealing the holy fire of Byzantium and running into the desert with it—Franny and Zoe stuff, Way of the Pilgrim meets Dharma Bums-backpackers in the ruins of someone else's empire…
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