God's Face In Our Humanity

Into the dark and void unknown I stare,

Sorrows streams cannot cleanse my heart

Of pain too deep for mortal souls to bear

Who from this human tragedy depart.

For all we think we know is a charade

And what we see as real illusion's mask,

The world is an ephemeral parade

The labour of Atlas or long Herculean task.

I hear a sadness like a hollow drone

Imposed upon the music of our life,

Each bears the agony of loss alone,

Father, mother, brother, sister, wife

Pass on and leave the others to their grief.

When cancer feeds on all but skin and bone

Or the weak heart fails and like a falling leaf

The body drops away that once had shone

Brightness of soul and bore the inner light,

Childhood and youth, a greater destiny's dreams

Gone, pierced by the arrow of death, their flight

Towards godhead stalled though spirit brightly gleams.

If we could meet the Beautiful alone,

Or in ourselves with every moment's breath,

What should we fear from all that lies unknown

Or swings our lives from cradle into death.

The Mother said ourselves we first must change

And recognize that God within us dwells

Our narrow half-blind life we must estrange,

Rise free from all our mind-created hells.

The karmic law that's hid in life's dim sleep

Shall at its hour wake and claim its due

That from its prison-yard the soul may leap

The walls of sense and form, begin anew

Its ageless quest to house on earth the Lord,

To wrest from Death his fierce hegemony,

To make of rank disharmony accord

And meet God's face in our humanity.