Earth, Dust, Atoms, Particles… The Spanish painter Tapies was, in one of his artistic stages taken with Buddhistic philosophy: When I Googled him, I was reminded of a poem I first wrote in 1994, revised in 2018 and again today in 2020. You may recognise the Vedanta philosophy in me, a philosophy that grabbed me in the early 50’s and has never really let go. Both earthy and spiritual, it has always suited my person and personality.
Arlene
The particles of God are falling on my head.
They’re falling on the living, probably the dead;
On believers, non-believers; equal particles they fall –
They’re always falling on and in and through the body wall.
God is particles of oneness. There are parallels galore.
When the atom showed its kernel and revealed there was more
To meet the eye, a kind of onion-layered door
Was opened there inside the mind as just the metaphor
For simpletons like me. God energy,
With big or little G;
Living, knowing particles that have no personality
But which, if I’d clean up my act,
Would mystically reveal the fact
That they, the particles and I, have one identity.
I’m trying to arrange and rearrange my head instead,
Make it more receptive than a means for daily bread –
A conscious sponge, a large receptor,
Image-making faculty a particle collector.
Each impulse must be pure, for
We’re in areas of karmic justice and reward;
And particles with qualities inherent in our race:
Areas of mercy, all the virtues, love and grace –
I’d rather not involve them – just assume that they exist.
It’s the God without the person that this poem has gently kissed:
Ever-present particles that are the living’s gist.
The Particles Of God 3.26.1994 /10.4.2018/1.14.2020To The Child Mystic; God Book; Arlene Corwin
Arlene Corwin Poetry 