8,400,000 LIVES? 
(a poem of humor and wonder)

Chart from GOD SPEAKS, 2nd edition, published by Dodd Mead and Co.

Has it really been 8 million
400 thousand lifetimes
in human form alone?
Well, perhaps not:
I’m probably not
the ripest piece
of fruit on this tree.

But maybe 7 million, or even
an even 8, lacking
only those last 400,000
“laps” of this marathon?

It’s just all so inconceivable,
this process this divine dance,
this “film version of GOD SPEAKS”
meaning the Technicolor Movie
before our eyes every second,

the Movie produced, directed
and starred in by
the Beloved Himself
in many many, many, many,
many, many, many, many
many many different forms.

HOW CAN I (WE) ACCEPT
WHAT I (WE) CAN’T
EVEN CONCEIVE?
There’s the Rub...
e.g. the scratching of
our divine Itch!

He shows us
(I, me, you, we, he, her)
a Thing or two,
takes off a few
layers of masks,
a Doctor with
a unique prescription
for each patient.
***
The man at the next table
at the café where I’m writing this
just told me, “I’m a composer,
and this morning I was working
in my recording studio,
working with a single note,
and I realized, INFINITY
is in that one note!”

I had just been looking for
an example I could use here,
that shows how BABA
can suddenly unveil
Himself to us for
a second, moment, a day,
even forever—
and then it came!

At least, for a guy like me,
whom the Beloved has previously,
by His Grace, shown the splash of stars
and galaxies in his morning cereal,
His Face in a tree or on
each lily pad in Long Lake...
a few other things, just
to make a believer of me.

So, there you have it!
I’ve swallowed
Meher Baba’s “schtick”
lock, stock and barrel;

and I’ll stake my life
and lives on it—
I hope!
****
written 11/10/23 by m.r.
picture, GOD SPEAKS, 2nd Edition, publ. by Dodd Mead and Co.