In My Youth

In my youth I tended soil and tree

And of earth's marvels ever lived in awe

Innately aware of a living sanctity

I harvested her gifts yet hardly saw

In the miracle of fruit on laden limb

The occult force that germinates the seed,

The energy that pierces hardened crusts

To reach the sun, its sole imperative need.

I met along my path the gifted men

Who understood the rhythms of the earth

And shared with me their wisdom and the skill

That gently coaxes substance into birth.

And as I watched and cared I also grew

Aware of dormant needs from deeper roots,

A fallow spirit that lay untended within,

The first emergence of those tender shoots

Of soul that breaking through our rigid clay

Presage the beauty when all the veils are shed

And the psychic being robed in light breaks free

To the immortal Unity rewed.