Lilburn is not concerned with jotting down offhand verse of banal diurnal anecdote. In non-dual spirituality, there are the relative and absolute worlds, though (paradoxically) each can join with, and dissolve into, the other. But language is a logical construct. We can only converse in a relative sense. The idea or description or presentation, no matter how artfully transmitted, is not itself enlightenment. Lilburn’s spiritual antecedents were likewise concerned with the higher plane, but they knew the limits of words when it came to “falling/into knowing’s body” (“Theurgy II”). Lilburn, throughout his poetic career, has presented his terms (Names Of God), celebrated his epiphanies (Tourist To Ecstasy), wrestled with reconciling his visions to supreme consciousness (To The River, Moosewood Sandhills, Kill-Site), and amplified a change in that latter volume towards a frenetic, even desperate, attempt at union (Orphic Politics).
