The Specters of the Outer Spaces

On the Rocks, Eyes Turned Upward
Marie Porterfield and Samuel Barry

Beneath the blue dome of the Unknown,
Beyond which mine own eyes will never see,
And beyond even that beyond,
A distance across which my human flesh
May never travel,
There lie the great and mysterious spaces.
Our eyes look upward and
The light catches them,
The spectrum of visible light condenses
And all we see is white.
Spots gather in my eyes,
And I am made aware that
What lies behind the stars is
What lies behind the hearts
Of ours and theirs.

A Grady Avenue Love Poem
Marie Porterfield

Oh stranger, your ethereal light shines,
Brighter than that of we human beings.
A moment ago, you were unknown by me,
And now your resounding light is all I see.
But, strangely, I know you,
As if I have met with you in one thousand dreams.
You, there, standing in front of my living body,
Like a mirror, like a miracle,
Your two eyes reach back toward me.
And in this moment fleeting, my living heart beating,
I feel only love for you,
Like a child brough forth from the mother’s womb
Who opens her eyes for the first time
To feel the meeting of the destined greeting
Of love.

The Seeing Eyes
Samuel Barry

Everything a perishable eye
may see is perishing
and all the universe
is but a shadow
thrown by God’s light
and by His light dispelled.

Though my senses all will fail me,
Still this mercy’s resonance
Will steady me in recollecting the
Truths that you imparted.

Along the Path (for Hesse)
Joey Carter

I am along the path. To be along the path is not to be on the way to something.
Rather, it is the advance itself. The path is the march of the mind.
Here, in the world, I find that we often reside in the beyond.
As long as my mind wanders through the spacious regions of these familiar places,
I seem to look for what is unfamiliar—the unseen.
From long ago, what is unknown set me along this path.

Along the path, I have always already been.

On the Parts of Living Beings (De Partibus Animalium) Bk 1, Ch. 5.
Aristotle

Of beings constituted by nature some are ungenerated and imperishable
through all the eons, while others share in generation
and decay. The former are excellent beyond compare and are divine,
though less accessible for study….
The scanty grasp we have of celestial things gives us,
on account of their excellence, more pleasure than all our information
about the world in which we live, just as half a glimpse of persons
we love is more delightful than a lingering view of other things….
And yet… the greater nearness and natural affinity to us [of terrestrial things]
balances somewhat the loftier interest of philosophy in divine things.

The Greater Nearness
Joey Carter

At the closing of the day, Light remembers our hopes.
She never lets go of our hand, even in the shadows laid before us;
She lets us roam for ourselves but only with a watchful eye;
Among those who remain, we too are guided by the same light.
With you, we are with; with us, you are home.
With her, we are with you at home.

The Reality of the Unreal
Luke Johnson

That’s the funny thing about the Unseen and our notion of the being of all beings.
It’s an immaterial essence from which all that is, exists;
however, the effects do not end there.
Within the hearts of those attuned to it, erupts forth all sorts of artifacts and art.
It’s as if the Unseen traipses through the world, proving itself to all.
Though it cannot directly animate the senses,
we have indicators contrary to the opinions of naysayers.

And what are we to say to those unconvinced
that the atheist hypothesis has been precluded?
There is little that can move their convictions to the affirmative
regarding the reality of the unreal. Despite one’s persuasion,
there is something beautiful in the contemplation of that which evades our senses.
Merely postulating Its existence blankets meaning over the world,
driving us harder towards the end of truth. Even if it is only a postulate.

What words were spoken here? What songs sung?
Did those claiming the presence of the Unseen within,
fill this sacred space with equally sacred sentiments?
We must properly prepare our words and thoughts for the immaterial,
for it has no other embodiment.
A painstaking act of will must be exercised to get it right.
Our sentiments and thoughts manifest the unseen in the phenomenological world.
Utterances must be brought into accordance with the unreal real’s being.

Why do we sacrifice and dig deep
to make room for the Unseen in this world of fleeting appearances?
Surely, we are in need of It,
but does it make sense to posit need on the opposite end?
Does it love us? Does It desire to be reconciled with us?
Some would argue that any love for objects beyond Itself,
would hint at a deficiency.
This critique only works if one has a particularly narrow conception of love.
A love that is desperate and riddled with loneliness.
That is not the love of that which is unseen.
It is a magnanimous and overflowing love,
which we exemplify when we are at our best.
It stands to reason, that the unseen and perfect
would only be more constant in this respect.

Excerpt from Gazel
Aşık Pasha, translated by Selcuk Acar and Samuel Barry

This delicate life of ours
comes and goes in the blink of an eye,
As a bird in a moment alights
And flies away unheard.

How many of these winds
Have passed since creation,
We do not know.

Life is like a breeze
That blows one season,
Then passes on.
---

O Aşık! use your life for the love of Truth
So that you will arrive before the honored one
in the blink of an eye.

Silence Follows
Marie Porterfield and Samuel Barry

The years’ passing renders my mind’s eye dimmer,
And your fading light becomes like a dream,
But tender I will hold you in my memory
For all the days of my life.
The silent intimation of a vast significance
Still rings in my ears when

Starlight strikes my face.

Blessing
Samuel Barry

Let the mercy He placed upon our hearts
be a reminder o the mercy He placed
between our eyes,
while you yet lingered in this lowly
world of sorrow.

Lamb Caught in the Motion of the Spinning Earth
Marie Porterfield

Through all my life, I have believed.

Like a little lamb, caught up in the motion
Of the spinning Earth,
I knew my breathing being
To be delicate.

Saved a hundred times or more
From the dangers of the world,
By the sweet, nearly silent,
Voice of the unseen shepherd,
Who whispers and protects and
Pours light, blessedly, through the
Windows of my eyes
Into the fibers of my heart.

Excerpt from You, Veiled One
Victor Hugo, Translated by Jud Barry

Look for me among the seagulls!
Cast your searchlight upon my reef!
Find in my dark and somber deep
The thoughts of a white sepulchral angel.

May you be the wing overhead that fades
Beyond into the wrathful breaking tide.
Oh, come! You must be very beautiful
Because your faraway song is very soft.

As night always gives birth to day
Perhaps it is a divine law
That it is my lugubrious destiny
To crack your mysterious smile.

In this shadowland where I wander
There’s no way not to see you
In all your spectral glory, while I
Go dressed entirely in duty.

From the beyond you say you love me.
You tell me that, on night-settled horizons,
You come unseen up the pale shore
To see the white ghostliness of my house.

Thinking, there under the dome of the unknown,
Under pitiless assault by the waves,
What a surprise to see how much
Mereness seems so like Creation.

You understand, in a way beyond my knowing,
“Waves” as “people,” “shadows” as “exile,”
“The lamp twinkling in my window”
As “star-twinkled eternity.”

Sometimes it’s like I’m lying in a tomb
And I feel, upon my dead forehead,
The lips of the Unknown bestowing
The vestaled kiss of the beau Ideal.

We Reside in the Unknown
Joey Carter

It has been said that all humans desire to know. It is part and parcel of who we are.
This, still, assumes we have yet to attain knowledge. Thus, we reside in the unknown.
That which we seek, for now, is the unknown since we seem to have an idea of something to be sought, but still out of reach.
What is out of reach is the beyond, beyond us, pulling us towards it without have revealed itself.

What if we have missed a crucial aspect of the search, an aspect that if recognized, would reorient us in the search for knowledge?
What if the beyond searches for us? What if the beyond has been here all along, beside us, seeking us as much as we seek them?

The Space Between Our Words
Joey Carter

What are the words with which we speak? How is it that they traces our thoughts?
The space between our words, the void standing beyond the meaning, it is the land without which there is no cultivation,
no voice, no parchment on which we write. The space between our words is distance between worlds.