In The Taj Mahal

And there were flowers that we thought we knew

Familiar blossoms plucked in childhood's days

With podgy greedy hands for our delight,

Yet unfamiliar in the subtle ways

The visionary artist represents

Images that only he has seen,

A world that in our dreams we hardly know

And lonely places where his soul has been.

We sang the AUM and from the marble walls

The Word came back to us resounding clear

Reverberating in our very cells

Its echo ringing in the inner ear.

We sat absorbed, the spirit rapt in song

The too-loud world unable to impose

Its dissonance upon the trance-bound soul

That merged in sound felt all beings close.

That beauty could be built from pain of loss

A temple to immortalize one's love,

What yet might be if men would chant the AUM

And heaven voice its answer from above.