Journey Just Begun

11/17/03

O you prophets of the elemental worlds

Can you hear me as I praise the earthly gifts?

Where flowers bloom unseen a thousand years

I go in dream above the sleeping steppes.

I have walked the ancient glaciers of the north,

Seen purities of blue no lens could hold

And stood before volcanoes belching fire

On a burning rim outlasting human time.

And all these journeyings were home to me.

I have gone below the surface of the sea

And wonders found, a living kaleidoscope

Of colours and designs some deity

In a moment's inspiration by his touch

Ordained and as the coral bloomed and grew

I swam among the rays most joyously.

Descending in the depths of earth's cave-heart

I heard the music of the stalagmites

And all these journeyings were home to me.

I have stood in the Himalaya's frigid air

And looked above at gleaming Everest,

Soared in skies beyond the eagle's view

Where diamond cities faceted the night.

I bathed in the freezing Ganges purified

In Rishikesh on the banks of her rushing streams.

I have known mountains purple in the noon

And seen the bison thunder on the plains.

And all these journeyings were home to me.

I have walked in forests where the darkness spoke

And watched the fearsome panthers in their play,

Saw the sun a living ember rise

From ocean depths to sink in the unknown

And seen the deserts flower in the spring,

A pageant march across the burning sands

And walked alone on grey and distant shores

Where massive rollers crashed in the bleak morn.

And all these journeyings were home to me.

I have knelt in gardens fragrant with the dew

And wandered lost in deep and darkening woods,

Communed with bird and beast and tree and flower

And foundered in the surge of unkind seas.

I have heard the haunting music of the spheres

And sailed on emerald seas to distant shores,

Watched the play of Nature in her moods

Of calm benevolence and wantonness.

And all these journeyings were home to me.

On a morn of God in a far eastern land

I met a golden lady by the sea.

Her touch unveiled the far transcendences

And the million pathways of infinity.

A host of welcoming voices called to me

Who came in answer to their spirit's need,

Some to build a city known in dreams

A few to realize their destiny.

I have come home, my journey just begun.