The Oneness Program

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 1/29/08

Because the light has to be coming from somewhere,
The sky being evenly spread with a pallid overcast
And dawn two hours distant, and everything
Slightly a-pulse with an inner glow.
Could it be that this hour is an entity,
Like one of those self-illuminating oddities
Who live in the Benthal realms of the deepest seas,
Our thoughts the drifting detritus of its food?
Its wondrous precision of movement reminds us
Of these. The hour is alive, and we have awakened
Inside of its aliveness as eccentrics being digested
In its belly, the cilia of our breathing a locomotion
That moves us deeper, but deeper into what?
Now we realize that every hour has been leading
Down to this one, and that our whole lives
Have been a dive into a physicality of experience
That can never resolve its struggles in any sleep,
And that here, here alone, in this aberration’s gut,
In a lightless trench on the floor of this frigid ocean,
We have come upon the completely alien angel:
Imagination, and it is this awakening into strangeness
That we have been striving incessantly to attain,
As if our disappearance was all that we’d ever desired.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 1/22/08

Our apotheosis was not what we expected.
The dormant volcanic cones of our familiar
Mountains did not erupt, and the white
Vagaries rising from their tops were not
Steam, but mist, as the day breathed softly,
Out, in, out, in, expressing the nuzzling
Greeneries of rain: gentleness, a soft fading
Of grey light into a night of faintly polished
Dun and maroon pastels, a sleep that is like
The warmth of embracing lovers, which has
Not quite tapered into dream. The old anxieties
Did not flare out in paroxysms of catastrophe,
Worry was simply blanketed, like a belovéd child,
Who is touchingly wrapped in wool. Yes, before
We knew it, we were underground. Darkness
Wound round and down, our ecstatic torches
Providing just enough light to keep the fantastic
Shadows a bit at bay, until, al last, to the cool
Drip-drop of soothing, unseen waters,
We found ourselves in the chamber.
Here, we place our hands on the wall
And outline them with ochre. Here, the great
Animals in our hearts revive their wondrous
Migrations. Here, our apotheosis,
Torn from our savage, innocent voices,
Echoes the honey of song among the crystals,
As the blessings of peace are magically reborn.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 1/9/08

Someone noticed that the ship was moving,
And the stars, which a moment before had seemed
Almost stationary, began tilting westward.
It was then, then, that the world was divided,
And the sleepless ones on deck knew that night
Had a limit. We were bearing east towards dawn.
Even in mid-ocean, we could smell the essential
Difference. The salt air, our history of tears,
Began to give way to a subtle weaving of perfumes,
As if rocks and trees and green things were
Breathing spring even in the icy corridors of winter.
The air on deck at the prow began to fill
With dreams. It was then, then, that the dead began
To stir from their slumbers. It was then they began to sing.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 1/6/08

A few stars blinking with awed astonishment
Under the rolling citadels of imposing clouds,
Lights seeping up from the eastern horizons
That are not the lights of dawn, but of a city,
Quenching the monstrosity of a typical
Saturday night with the typical sobriety
Of a Sunday not-quite dawn —
Certainly a birth is being announced,
A name propitiated, but it is a hidden name,
A name, which has perhaps been devised
To remain forever hidden, so that a few
Sober, alert inhabitants of that somnambulant
City will stay awake night after night
To ponder such a mystery. It has been raining now
For days, and even if the insomniacs
Would report tomorrow on the briefly appearing stars
And upon the mystery of the hidden name
And upon the announcement of the birth,
No one would believe them. Because even
On Sunday morning, the denizens of this city,
Perhaps of every city since time began,
Are seekers after a loud certitude,
And not an ambiguous silence.
The citadels are moving and the stars
Disappear beneath their massive porticoes,
Like tiny vassals devoured by their Lord.
And yet it is here, it is now, when fatigue
Tugs at the brain with its greatest heaviness
That the mind of the insomniac,
Although it is the tiniest light of them all,
Blinks its signal reply to the vast unknown.
And the name, not its sound, but its silent power,
Exerts its mighty influence, like a love
That beckons into deeper darkness.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 1/1/08

What has happened to the attention of that one,
So much like ourselves, but calmer, more
Involved in gazing? When the light crumbles down
Through the layers of evergreen branches,
Spangling the ridged bark red, how is it that he hears those hues
Sigh “forest.” That one sees everything as birth,
And erects no myth of utility
Between himself and the candied ice in the road ruts.
In the rush of birds, he succumbs to virginity’s thrall,
As fecund and as boundless as the ocean’s surge.
That one, so much like ourselves, so achingly near,
So terribly absent when we try to touch him,
Seems always to be preoccupied, engaged,
So that others, too much like ourselves,
Those who excavate layers of light
To make use of them, comment sardonically,
“That one seems always lost in the middle of something,”
As if from his world to ours was the dangerous distance
Between the closest center and the farthest verge.
Mists rise into serpents from the forest valleys
And coil like questions from the city’s pavements,
The peaks and the building-tops drifting on golden clouds,
So that that one, at the prow of an elegantly gilded sloop,
Climbs up, slides down through billows of vaporous jewels.
Calm, on the deck, alone, though surrounded by others,
Those like ourselves, whose hearts would drown to be near him,
He is showered with sun spray as he plunges forward,
Sailing through boisterous time, with no thought of steering.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written December 25th, 2007

Well, Mother, if you knew that the child you
Gave birth to this fine, bright winter’s morning
Would die before his time in an unjust act
Of humiliating violence, would you still smile
At his smile, still kneel down in your heart among
These humble animals and wonder at the star
That heralded his coming? The frost,
In the wake of the sun, still glitters
In the shadows, reversing figure and ground,
Making a revolution in our perception
And in our emotional body, that says,
Like an angel, unseen, for all her splendor:
“There is no iota of experience that is not saturated
By light, all is scintilla and revelation,
All is star and signal and thanksgiving.”
How hideously that message cuts a wound.
We do not wish for angels or for glory,
Nor do we celebrate mass for these daily
Crucifixions, where the Herods, without
Reproach or constraint, continually slaughter
The innocent, their sole motive
A detestation of freshness that foments terror,
While always accusing others of terrorism.
Mother, the infant that you suckle will do
Miracles, heal the torn, elevate the despised,
Enunciate the unspeakable, cheat death.
But Herod will live on, unmolested,
The king of the old, destroying his kingdom of babies,
And you, Mother, you, even as you melt
The frost, in this moment, with your tenderness,
Will be his scepter and his sword.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 12/19/07

Now the nights are forbiddingly cold,
Their skies a chaotic welter of too many tiny stars.
But we can imagine him, when he was alone,
In bright sunshine, almost blind, but moving
Lurchingly with that characteristic uncertainty
Indicative of searchers. The bizarre is crowded,
And he is buffeted about by hawkers hawking their wares,
By hagglers haggling for the last shekel,
By poorly attended children and pugnacious
Donkeys, one old man, timidly limping
Through the mob. He did not know anything
Back then of the others who lived inside of him,
Or of the manger with its reeking, humble beasts,
Or of the baby with the pierced white hands.
He only knew that his search had brought him
This far, and that whatever he bought here,
At whatever cost, this would be his final purchase.
He found myrrh, and bargained poorly for it,
Buying eternity dearly. That night he would dream
Of all his former selves, threaded together
Like the massive golden ingots of Caesar’s necklace,
And of a corpse wound in frankincense,
So that it remained fresh, like a newly cut flower
On its cold, stone slab. With these others,
He knew he was nearly ready for his journey,
And he awakened with a great joy starring his east,
The cry in his throat, a newborn infant’s cry.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 12/9/07

The last roses have mated with the first frost,
And this morning, blushing pink as peonies,
They lean east towards a sun, which rises late,
As it will set early, but which nevertheless
Is most meticulous in his tasks. Illumination
Is everywhere, even deep down in the tiniest
Crystals of frost, and in the translucent spiraled
Folds of the drooping rose. And with the illumination
Comes a prelude of sweet stillness, large, large and blue.
Something is about to happen.
We have seen color before,
Been impressed by its tonal splendors,
Those scintilla of joy, which shower the vision
And arouse a storm in the emotional body
That reveals the living pulse beneath the lawn.
But this morning it is different. It is richer.
The color is not over there, but in here,
In here, glowing, even with the eyes closed
Or diverted, so that almost against our will,
We are swept into the brilliance of this brief
Winter’s day, and bestowed a fantastic honor.
So many jewels in the breastplate of the grass,
As the big angel stands up, immense as the sky,
In the little housing of our bodies!
Now it is, it is happening. This is the angel that makes
The color sound, as his exuberance
Proclaims, with a warrior’s arrogance
And flourish, that everything that is is ours and grand.

By Roy Dean Doughty
Written 12/3/07

“Let go,” says the voice, as if to comfort,
But how strange it is that our sleep has been
Truncated by the destruction of the possessive
Me and mine, and we awaken
With a multitude of selves choiring through
The body and even extending far into the skies,
Which have become layerings of turgid pastels —
Smudged coppers, pallid reds, depressed blues,
The conglomerations of a fast-moving storm
Whose swift subtleties intensify the night.
The breath moves outside the body, shaking the whole
House with profound rumblings, as the choir
Tunes itself to the tumblings of the wind.
Certainly, we long for the centering relief
Of a single sleep, but it is too late for that.
The fathers are restless and the corridors of the house
Bulge with ancient violations of the not me
And me, suffering enumerable territory
Disputes, each one of whose terrible wars
End in shuddering reconciliations.
Snippets of foreign tongues collide in the dark,
Each one pleading: “I do not understand.
Forgive me.” These words drag tears from
The decrepit warriors that fall on the roof
As rain. So an ocean mates with an ocean,
As personal rage is subsumed by impersonal grief.
And a surging, which takes possession of the storm,
Swallows all bullets, all bombs, and sings,
At last, in many whisperings,
Of fresh beginnings and of final peace.

By Roy Dean Doughty
For Takashi Tanemori
Written 8/6/07

One of the those deep purple glows where the sky
Assumes a color which huddles low and lower,
As if an uncanny shuddering of
Basso profundos were weaving dense polyphonies
Into those lonely, after midnight hours
Known only to insomniacs, thieves or poets,
Hours filled solely with this cold tide of the sea
In which our words and bodies crystallize.
He hear round, hollow moans, not of remorse,
Nor even of grief, but moans of remembrance,
Remembrance of that day when a lone bomber
Shuddered aloft with black viscous rain in her bay,
The accumulated deaths of all of mankind’s wars,
An irradiated woe bound to destroy the world.
What was born that day, lives in this night,
And occupies that hole in the lattice of the crystal
Where impersonal memories are stored.
Here rests the oldest, the darkest grandmother,
A crone on a squat, rustic throne, weaving the threads
Of the boiled bodies of children into a black, silk shroud —
Beautiful, ah, so beautiful, a night that shines
And glows, shines and flows, and makes of all colors
One color, one flag that billows over the nations,
Victorious, uniting, and tonight, after waiting decades
To unfurl, free. How can this be?
Are the children living again in this deeper tone?
And is this, at last, the color of forgiveness?