For Mary Helen

She Has Travelled Long Towards the Light

It was not as if we two were souls estranged

Living in uncomfortable ease,

That distance felt when inner fires changed

To cooling embers dying by degrees.

We were both flames and flaming did embrace

The challenge that our fate had firmly sealed,

For we had gazed upon the Mother's face

And knew our secret souls by Her revealed.

We sought to weld the hidden links of love

Not even mighty death could hope to break

In a mystic union sanctioned from above

We loved the more for the Beloved's sake.

Now she has left, a final breath at dawn

Though through the night I felt her limbs grow cold,

And slowly closed her eyes in that grey morn,

Whose timeless beauty opened to enfold

One final time in their enchanted spell

My life by love enveloped and embraced.

I held her dying and in that last farewell

All the world's transgressions were effaced.

She has travelled long towards the light

My soul's companion and my heart's delight.