Advice to a novice.

You who aspire to the mystic state, who would be saint by pure passivity and for this goal

crush every urge to take a cushioned pause between two tasks, clamp shut inquiring eyes,

measure every pace and never run or leap or jump for grief or joy, you who

sweat the sticky tides of passion under blackest serge, glad no one sees

the nipples swell, the pulse beat somewhere near the womb and burn more than

flayed bare skin, who revere all austere absolutes to make the empty place

for God, who will come, certain, if you throat low humming notes to clear

from every orifice each urge to make the bloated mind go flat.

When you have achieved, you think, the perfect passive state, come and see the most barren line

of shore and watch the Portuguese men-of-war, flung just beyond the tide's receding reach, beached

translucent kidneys, trimmed in amethyst, marooned, it seems, subject to gull's prick, wind's slap, and the sun's

up-sucking rays, who have not even brain to think of green back wash or cells enough

to hope a rescue from the lapping wave. Watch this and tremble.