How?

If writing genres were utensils, prose would be a fork. When your topic is meaty and substantial, prose is the logical choice. You can really stick your fork into it!

When your topic is soup, you'd be silly to use a fork.

I recently learned that poetry makes a fantastic spoon. Gibran and Rumi taught me that!

Here's some soup I made a while back. Lemme know how it tastes.

How?

How can the time-bound know Eternity?

How can matter grasp spirit? 

This meat-vehicle restricts you 

Like shackles upon the soul.

Part of you

Resides beyond time’s grasp, 

A seed, a watchful presence, 
A knowing light

Glowing dimly within.

This light

Is your share of the  divine;

Give it a name and pray to it, 

For verily this presence is Truth,

And it shall set you free.

Yet even the word “Truth” deceives.

Like a mask upon the Beloved's face
The word masks the meaning. 

How can symbols and utterances capture the Ultimate? 

These words are cages:

Fling them open; let the birds out

And watch them wheel across the sky

In widening circles, ever outward, 

Filling the world with song.

Truth unmasked is easily found:
It reveals itself 

In all places and things.

Flock of birds, you, Truth, God:

One and the same and at the same time 

Neither and nothing. 

How is that possible? You ask.

How is anything possible? I reply. 

But what am I saying? Here I urge you,

“Free the birds!” while I spend my days

Building birdcages. 

Truth isn't revealed

'Till it's disrobed. 
You would disrobe Truth?

Disrobe yourself first. 

Remove your masks. Strip to the flesh.

Scrape away old paint and varnish.

Dig through dirt and gravel

'Till you hit bedrock. 

Here's the Ground! Here's the Truth! 

Here's You and I, All and Nothing!

The watchful presence rises from here, 

Roots sunk deep into the Source. 

Don't stifle the sapling: 

Give it room to grow; 

Quench its thirst

With water from the Four Rivers; 

Become the good gardner: 

Uproot brambles and dandelions. 

'Till the sapling bears fruit. 

How? you ask, 

But I’ve run out of birdcages.

Seek your answer among the birds.