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Poems by Joseph Kent

Originally posted on sciy.org by Debashish Banerji on Fri 20 Oct 2006 12:29 AM PDT  

Joseph Kent is a poet living in San Francisco and closely connected with the Cultural Integration Fellowship. Like many others, he was profoundly influenced by Haridas Chaudhuri and introduced by him into the spiritual teachings and practice of Sri Aurobindo's yoga. Joseph's poetic sensibility approaches experiences of the everyday world in a mystic vein. The poems presented here cover a gamut of reflections ranging from meditations on nature to intimations of the supramental future and inward yogic illuminations.


SEER

Most fortunate in this life is a seeker who finds the true spiritual seer,
that rare angel offering golden guidance
to illuminate the path, dispel clouds
of fear, doubt, uncertainty

I too set forth in silver grace through cities of the land and mystery
of the way, the psychic soul light my guide

Those early flights on the great highway

I learned to glide and toil in the vision
traipsing the Great White Way, pondering mysteries of Tao

And is not the way but a deepening
of the heart, a heightening and broadening of consciousness
in the waves of existence?

Wherever there has been an inspiring touch of the Divine
there has been light and fruits flowing therefrom

And it was after traveling a long time I encountered sublime good fortune
in meeting the Divine guide
in the City by the Bay

We received his gnostic light—his darshan
at the San Francisco Ashram

“When you choose the Divine, the Divine chooses you.”

Spiritual educator, illustrious savant, Sri Haridas   
stirred our spirit depths, broadened our spiritual outlook

The joyous perceptor lifted our being, unclouded our mysteries
in an unfoldment of integral truth vision

Sri Hari scattered dawn seeds as a holy servitor  
for the supramental earth

We perceived the “felt meaning” in his lucidity
at the California Institute of Integral Studies

White hair, intense sparkling eyes, the genial master
delighted his group with fables—the crow
who flaunted his feathers in imitation
of the bright coloured peacock

“One should not imitate or follow others
to a point of absurdity.”

The frog in the well who emerged
to see the ocean

“One must develop a broad universal outlook.”

Hours of illumined eloquence from a Vijnana seer
who inspired our integral self-awakening

All those luminous Sundays
and evening classes in his vision

All those flights in an adventure of consciousness.

 


QUARRY LAGOON

The Quincy quarries at one time yielded the best grades
of granite rock for use around the world.  An igneous or volcanic rock,
granite surfaces under pressure in a volcano.

Hot summer days we would take the bus
or thumb rides or drive from Roxbury
to the Quincy woodlands.

Ages eleven to thirteen, we street kids would climb the trail
up green hills to wild raspberry and blueberry patches
and the water-filled quarries, isolated
rock excavations of granite
and marble, boulders and stones.

The old Granite Railway Company in Quincy once hauled boulders
for building and stone used for church statues
as in India, quarried granite left from glacial
or prehistoric times, or excavated

for churches and tombstones of Boston
and environs, and lighthouses
of the nineteenth century.

We swam the fresh spring water
and frolicked leaping or high diving
off quarry rock ledges.

A mysterious presence pervaded these abandoned quarries,
an eerie and exotic beauty of reflecting pools,
greenish blue water where floated leaves,

insects, branches, twigs, small logs, dust,
soil carried by winds from rocks,
trees and plants.

Watery pools of bottomless excavations.  What were their depths?
The legend of a shrinking corpse
floating to the surface.  Youthful bravado and rash
antics in the mysterium tremendum.
 
Configured granite blocks with high outlook precipices
and Brahmic views of surrounding woods for miles
under a panoply of sky and clouds.

Beneath graffiti rock walls of rugged crags and steep
cliffs forlorn like a jungle lagoon
we swam the quarry fresh
in summer or early autumn, or spring.

We would climb to more elevated rocks
and grey ledges, then dive from the steeper cliff’s
high rock landings.

When we reached the very top landing “Rooftop,”
we would survey the view
of Quincy hills and woods and misty
Boston skyline in the distance.

Off this high ledge we would contemplate a swan dive.

I would visualize the dive’s steep arc,
poise myself for the tremulous height
then launch a winged swan into shining waters . . .

I now sometimes recall such events, memories
that stay with you.

Those youthful swan dives seemed to hint
at impulses toward transcendence, the moonlit pools to reflect
something tumultuous and Divine.



AUTUMN LEAF

The chill and tumbling leaves augured
the bright foliage soon to appear
in this area of Boston.

Autumn in Back Bay brought in a season
of falling leaves.  One leaf caught
my attention, twirled
at an angle and just turned up.

This large leaf transformed into yellow,
orange, brownish grey.  It fell
in peace, serenity, calm
on the green shallow fields in the Fens.

I looked around at the trees stretching
tall against the sky.  And this leaf
shone mellow in the sunshine.

The yellow circle of sun beamed
distant, uncaring as a cold wind
whipped across the rooftops in

random jerks.  I felt
the strong breeze as it came off
the water, observed the leaf

as it burned colours.  Its life force
began to leave as it melted
inward to yellowish orange.

The leaf bent in an odd way
and caved in like a person wincing,
the outer leaf parts pointed.  As the leaf
began to congeal and fix,

it became lighter and moved
with the wind, its veins and stem
thawed revealing the farewell
of leaves as they fell.

A whiff of a breeze sprang up, the onset
of inclement weather and scrawled its
poetry on the water.


NISUS


It was one of those magic days when everything
seemed the delight of existence.  Antique orange trolleys
trundled by.  Kites dawdled in the autumn sky.  A joyous play
of the One and the Many.  Is not our planet Earth
the home of the Divine in the cosmos?

I was walking north along the Embarcardero near the Bay Bridge
toward the Ferry Building.  It was a breezy Saturday afternoon
in October.  I inhaled the salty sea air, enthralled by the idyllic
atmosphere of one of the world’s most scenic walks.

The sunlit piers were all aglow along the Embarcadero
lined with port flags and elegant palms.  Mothers strolled baby carriages.
Cyclists and romping youth on roller skates
passed by under esplanade lamps. 

The natural wonder of the San Francisco waterfront
inspires the reflective soul.  The Bay has existed
for many thousands of years with its winds and fog and clouds
in Brahman’s poised omnipresence.

I continued along the Embarcadero esplanade
toward Aquatic Park, entranced by the prevailing spirit of joy
and ethereal beauty of the Bay.

At Pier 39 I paused to view the blue spectacle of bay waterfowl, aquatic
paradise of pelicans, geese, swans, ducks, and gulls.  Ferries cruised
the harbor routes of Tiburon and Sausilito.  All seemed a welcome respite
from the dreary mood of the workweek.

Children at Aquatic Park were building sandcastles on the shore.
Sunbathers and lovers reclined on the grassy knoll
gazing toward the glorious estuary and misty hills of Marin.
 
Continuing on to Fort Mason, I ambled over a Marina hill
overlooking Golden Gate Promenade, musing over the white sails and sweep
of the estuary when I saw the harbor entrance all ablaze.

Ancient Indians believed the Golden Strait to be a sacred place of the Gods.
It has also been called the gateway to the Orient.

I was filled with awe and wonder.  Such radiant splendour!
The Sun had entirely obliterated the Golden Strait in such wondrous light
that it seemed an epiphany of the Gods

kindling thoughts of human evolution.  Are we not evolving
toward a heavenly outcropping on earth of the Divine?

Now whenever I look toward the Golden Gate, I recall the dazzling
radiance of that Sun, symbol of a creative Supermind
that guides the evolutionary nisus toward the gnostic future.


GLEAM


“We do not belong to the past dawns, but to the noons of the future.”  –- Sri Aurobindo


The glorious climb of the cable car. Those views
the delight of tourists
and joy of San Francisco!

The bright January day had shifted to a cold, grey
afternoon of variable winds.  I got on
the cable car at Hyde on the California Line.
Our car ascended California toward Grace.

The antique cable cars climb these rolling hills
in a magical but precarious lift with a sense
of hazardous uncertainty.  They ascend
and descend asphalt and cobbled streets.

Often they run smoothly, but at times
in stalls and starts, especially in adverse weather.
And noisy windows rattle on the way
to corner curves and turns or abrupt stops.

None of this lessens the mirth or glee,
the perennial favor and smile
of San Francisco’s cable car magic,
which has charmed riders since August 1873.
The entire system was rebuilt in 1982.

As our car approached Leavenworth
my gaze lighted on a child sightseer
seated among the passengers
with her mother obliquely across the isle.
 
Like a blonde angel, four years old,
she peered about the car with its brown leather
handgrips, bare bulbs, cords and round bell.  Poets and mystics

are prone to heightened states, visitations, reveries,
mysteries of trance. And as our eyes met in silent communion
the starry gaze and gleam in her blue eyes
captured my interest. And somehow her divine expression


launched my vision of a future
super civilization on earth
evolving toward some golden infinity.  An advanced world
 
of the Spirit!  A harmonious world of creative enterprise
flourishing in a play of delight.  A transformed
creation free of evil, disease, suffering, and ignorance,

where the hidden Self had emerged long ago
from its depths in the human
and sorrow was not necessary.

It was a progressive realm habitated
by gnostic beings with the integral vision of a Divine Mind,
the poise and bliss of a supramental world
of Divine Light.

All this transpired in my brief visionary glimpse.

And I smiled and glanced shyly away
from the stare of this curious child
 
back to the sullen fog
and noisy Saturday
hubbub of our city, its chaotic clamor and clangour.

I stepped off the car at Powell, listened to wind
sweep over the city, pondered the global evolutionary
glimmerings of a gnostic race
in the new age.
 
The crowded cable car trundled down California
toward Chinatown, red taillights below,
amber lights above, the track illumined
by one bright beam.


DAY OF SIDDHI


He awoke to the day of Krishna.  The Bay of Bengal
scintillated in the cosmic air.

A revelation of the Supramental
sustained the range
to the future.

The way opened as history turned
toward the dawn.


VEDAPURI

The sun beamed down on the Bay of Bengal
in Pondicherry, known in earlier times as Vedapuri,
“The city of Vedic Illumination.”  In the morning
I walked along the Marina Drive
toward the Gandhi Memorial on Goubert Salvi Beach Road.

People sped by the sea wall on motorbikes
or in busy cabs.  Crows shrieked in the tropical air
and lush trees.

In my first view of the Bay, I was startled
by the sea’s astonishing beauty
in one of its glorious personalities.

I gazed out at the cosmic horizon to radiant waters,
recalling the “waters of multiplicity” in Sri Aurobindo’s symbol,
which represent the creation, the lotus blossom
floating at its centre in the central square
symbolizing the perfect manifestation
and the “Avatar of the Supreme.”

The Symbol’s descending triangle is Sat-Chit-Ananda
and the ascending triangle
stands for the “Aspiring answer from matter
under the form of life, light and love.”

On the blue waves—evoking the Supermind—the Lotus Symbol
appeared to my subtle sight
in love breezes of the Indian sea.

Endless shores stretched under cumulous clouds
north and south.  I searched the shoreline
of the subcontinent whose palms sway in monsoon rains,
coastal seawinds, cyclones, and torrid heat.

I dwelled on the Symbol’s eternal meaning
and the triple poised Brahman.

In the streets water-buffaloes drew carts,
cows lumbered past hawkers, goats, beggars.
Urchins frolicked.  Dusky maidens smiled
in saris on the promenade.

Is it not here in matter
that we must manifest the Life Divine?  O world to come!

Often I reflect now on the Symbol.  I recall flowers
and pilgrims, spray and cresting surf and winds
of ananda from the Bay of Bengal, the Samadhi
and peace that passeth understanding . . .

 

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