Release She has gone long into the healing peace And I no longer live to see her smile But still I work the garden in the spring Planting beauty, then to rest awhile But not for long in my remembering, For am I moved by forces barely known, Enamoured by the light I one day found And towards which my soul has slowly grown. That God resides in us there is no doubt But forces inimical await their hour, Faith and Will alone can drive them out For only then can one contain the power And from the grasp of troubled mind, release.

Prayer the Saving Attribute The Mother writes that each one of us Has within a beast ready to pounce And if we are not conscious and aware It can attack with devastating force. By turns it may by violence or stealth, Or by subtle means lay a lethal trap. One I know, a psychic and a witch, Tells me she takes him out now and then Puts a collar around his neck and says 'Let's go for a walk.' With me he plans And waits for the smallest opening. Often in a state of tiredness Or lack of will, perhaps in ignorance, He leaps upon the unsuspecting soul, Wreaks his damage and awaits with glee Our future weakness and infirmity

Call Down Peace 9/17/09 Each moment now is precious though I waste The hours with these same incessant thoughts That enter subtly through the fissured brain, Redundant openings to stations left Lives ago, still seeking to return, Troublesome and wearying and old. I have found a way for entrance of the light Directly to the heart and if the call Be pure enough, sustained, in truth, sincere They come in force, the dual avatars. Stilling of the mind remains undone But a wideness and a bliss envelope self, A recognition of the need to love Each facet of this million-bodied soul Of man, a love beyond the ego's grasp And call down peace fr

The Hymn of Human Destiny The grackle thinks its song as great As meadowlark and nightingale, And who are we to deprecate Whose auditory senses fail From the too-loud music of our time. Could we in silence like the deer Catch the harmonies sublime We then might note upon the ear Diviner music, ethereal sound, Lean to the wind or cricket's cry As one who has in silence found The hymn of human destiny. It is evening now, the linnet sleeps, The mockingbird sings no more And He who for us beauty keeps Arises in the being's core, And in the darkness brings us light To see with other than these eyes, Peeling back t

The Winds of Time   Today among the iris by the lake A calm descended on my troubled heart That for a timeless moment lived in peace. To know that one is on the path of light Illumining the great and minor flaws That would not be addressed for many lives Were we not blessed by having found a way To face the anger and confront the doubt That enters through the darkened cellar doors, Impatience and unworthiness of self, Desire and a vital restlessness. To recognize the patient guiding hand, The benignant touch upon our battered lives, Beaten at times but for a brief escape When stillness takes the soul and opens eyes Weak and tired from the

Letter from Mary Helen I have read your letter once again And felt the torment you passed through You shall not suffer it again Having left the body to renew Your spirit and allow it rest. You were so strong, you anchored me And made me feel supremely blessed. Your loving care was like a tree Against whose trunk my soul could lean, Whose branches kept the sun away, Your solicitude so rarely seen, Cradled the night and held the day To comfort me in my distress. Alone I live and working still Though somehow to me the world seems less Beautiful and cannot fill The emptiness of empty years, The loneliness that does not leave

Earth Transformed 11/12/09 Its light secure in the surrounding dark, The chaos of a brave unfinished world In a plague of conflict seeking harmony, Alone among the planets in the whirl. A plan in sacred earth's geometry Designed and modelled by an unerring hand Of whose execution we are part And partners in the evolution's play, We must transcend the present and the past, Reverse the smallness that we have become A body weakening beyond repair, A puppet of the unforgiving years, A mind enclosed in superficial thought A vital force consumed by its desires, Break out from bondage and set free the soul; Imprisoned in its cage forgotten it

One Long Known 10/22/09 Too soon is early joy dissolved Awakened ego-mind prevails And sees he world is very own, The Truth recedes, desire assails And swiftly lost the memory Of heights once known and peaks once scaled. The empiric only can be seen, The spirit's faultless vision failed. But deep within the self resides The One long known in ages past, Friend who solaces all grief Assuring us we will outlast Time's ravages, the stranglehold Of death; reborn in bodies new Advancing consciously the years Towards beauty in eternity, The presence of the realized few Who welcome us with grave delight Our souls now free, absolved from ni

The Wheel Along the West Side Drive the river flows Bordered by the roses of the Spring, The sleet-grey day hung with clouds of steel Obscures the view but dampens not their souls. The speeding traffic like a dragon's tail Glowing red beneath the pewter sky Undeterred goes calmly on its way, Driven by the Wheel that spins our lives. -------------- The scenic West Side Drive in New York City

When Poetry Comes When poetry comes and I in altered state Receive the beauty of a world unknown That lies within and certainly above, Recipient of verses that are sown As seeds are broadcast by the gardener's hand I know not where or when the moment dawns But settled in the quiet of a room, Driving on the busy roads of time Or wakened from the alpha waves of sleep, All doubt dispelled, nothing I assume But wait upon the Word to move the hand And see as dots on an illumined page The lines take shape and of a sudden feel The rhythms of the dance within my soul.