RIDDLE


What am I that all beasts and men
Search me out in times of famine?

They see me even when I do not exist,
A mirage shimmering in the mist.

But note the present congregation:
All of the species in gestation.

Counted amongst the spectators
Are white ibis sitting on alligators,

Deer strolling with cheetah
And lions sleeping with zebra.

Here, the animals are no longer wary
Because here humans are not so scary.

Watch as the people trek in from afar,
Seeking respite from a relentless star.

They sit in the glade of a grove of palm
And there contribute to the on-going calm.

Seeing this fountain which never dries up,
Some take both hands and make a cup,

Then kneel and bend, dip and drink.
Perhaps they sense the deep karmic link

Which led them 'just in time' to this place.
They are confused as to time and space

But I argue that Spacetime curves
As energy is threaded through nerves,

And they sense that. Body and mind collected,
They peer at the image now reflected,

And see their eyes, and behind their eyes,
They see Sight itself, the one who scries.

And such vision thought so undistorts
That fresh water becomes flowing quartz.

Yea, in my shaded precincts one might find
No further destinations for the mind.

Yet, at every moment, caravans leave and arrive.
In my clear pool, one can breathe in and dive

And spot my sourcing secret – a bubbling spring
That unstrings the nerves from conditioning.

So much for mental discriminations.
So much for personal infatuations.

What am I? A noman's land for refugees?
Come, reader, sit in the shade of my trees,

For in this quiet I give greater scope
Than e'er surveyed by the lord of hope.




`By John Paul Maynard