A poetic exchange that once happened between James and Marie Shramko
[Marie]
Away from home
A lucky chance
To see my real home
A spacious one
An anxious one
Both think that they belong
Where nothing lasts
And somethings pass
And emptiness is form
[James]
To travel away from home
I ride on thoughts
Which hide the truth
That I am always home
The thoughts that lead me astray
Are themselves the furnishings of home
May I see free of belief
And rest at home in
The home I cannot own
[Marie]
Something happens
For a while
Flames are flaming
For a while
Inner prison isn’t real
Why should I care?
[James]
Something happens
But to whom?
Flames are rising
Who is on fire?
Prisons of identity
Composed of beliefs….
Thoughts cannot free me
From thoughts
[Marie]
It happens to an area in space
That I am conscious of
And then it goes away
Identity is little bits
Of moments revealed to me
Compared to someone else
I ride on thoughts in a ghost house
They aren’t sun rays in the sky
As clouds are not the sun
Are they?
[James]
Riding on thoughts in this ghost house
I walk on clouds and shadows
Only my own weightlessness permits this
Only my lack of inherent existence
No one walks on no thing – how free!
And yet I carry the burden of being me
[Marie]
While I’m busy being me
Forms and shapes are giving colours
Persecutors lose their chances
To let go and to be free
While I’m busy being me
All I am has come from somewhere
I can’t even be a weirdo
Just because I don’t know how
While I’m busy being me
There’s no lock and no gatekeeper
When the castle is on clouds
Clouds are somewhere in the sky
[James]
Each day thoughts and feelings come to play
Like them or loathe them they don’t stay
By resting in silence they go on their way
Freedom is here come what may
[Marie]
On the path to relaxation
You don’t need to be the strongest
You don’t need to have opinions
You just need to simply be
In the manner of a dream
We are drawn hither and thither
But the storm will come to silence
Just as it has always been
[James]
Playing with language
Refreshes the mind
As the burden of meaning
Can be most unkind
Patterns without referent
Offer nowhere to stand
Yet patterns are just music
So make friends with the band
[Marie]
The band is
beyond
ཨords…
April 2024