The Cross

The river flows uphill.
It isn’t magic.
Magic is when it flows downhill.

The arrow of time is pierced
by eternity

The man hanging is
the soul
awakened.

The milk girl is dancing
The “Cotten-Eyed Joe”
on the gym floor of the mind
underneath which the oceans of the Cosmos
Splash applause and awake as Suns.
On the head of a pin, spinning,
she offers distance
heaven’s wooden bowl.

Living is easy.

And the Lady of our feet
washes the expression
of how things shalt be
from the Skull’s dead head
with the Water of Life.

Below the willowed valley’s flowery eyes
see without looking
reach without moving
teach without speaking,
and love without thinking.

Every time one of its olive branches whispers
the secret of secrets into the Mediterranean breeze,
a new life is born of virgin birth,
transcendently, through the middle of the true cross,
the heart.

©2009 Stephen Pickering