Letter from Prison

I walk to the car each day

reciting my prayers aloud.
After a few lines
I stop and look around.
The walkway is shaded
by redwoods and eucalyptus.
A lovely hill rises to my right.

Yet the Master’s Prayer
doe not bespeak this beauty.
It addresses the One Creator
of all worldly beauty and ugliness:
the One for Whom there is
no “you and I” or “this and that.”

I realize once again how woefully,
how totally imprisoned I am.
What did Beloved say is the biggest
prison in the world? The human body!

Nature, it is true,
often brings a special
breeze from the divine,
but it is still Nature
and I am still “I”.

After all these years,
the way to Oneness
seems impossible again

until I pull from my mind
a Message in a Bottle:
the Universal Message, and recite,
“It is possible for you to renounce
your limited self by My Grace.
I have come to release that Grace.”

By the time I get to the car,
it’s game on again.
I will continue to do my best
to chisel or tunnel from my side.
I will fall far short of the mark;
but He already Knows that.
It is why I need His Grace.

1/14/2021
[For the curious, this is Saint Malo's Prison
in Brittany, France. Ok? And no, it does not actually
have a Baba Card on its front door. :-) ]