A Children's Story of the Golden Age – told in couplets For Khusali Paradise on Earth June 18, 2004 "She comes, my child, graceful as the trees That bend in homage with the morning breeze. Her hair seems woven of sunlight's golden strands And in the fragrant petals of her hands . . ." "My father, this bird of paradise came down Onto my hand, his song to me unknown Though I have studied carefully the call Melodious of meadowlark and all The sweet replies of singers on the bough. O father shall you take him to your brow And from the eye that sees discern his heart Or why he came reluctant to depart

Towards the Growing Light Only the living eternal You remains And the secret joy sealed in the heart's alcove, The blush of beauty caught in fragrant lanes In gardens of delight through which I move. I am led by a spirit who informs my days And by a sure and strong unerring hand Into the vast unknown, untrodden ways, The soul's adventure in uncharted land. I seek no more for self but Self to know Amid the turmoil of this whirling sphere, And now to Her with heightened sense I go Towards the growing light that draws me near.

Our Mother We gladly took from Her but little gave Of self and dreams and darknesses we held And chose not to reveal although She saw The depths of our deceptions and yet poured The wine of grace on our anointed heads. She bore intransigence and met with love Our human imperfections, chased our fears And placed a golden chain around our hearts To bind the soul to God that we might feel The Presence that abides through all our lives, Protects and nourishes the spirit's growth, Through death prepares the advent of our change, In sorrow is the comforter who bears All pain and grief as Hers and sends us bliss To fill the emptiness within our breasts.

The Dark Resistance Morning in India. The faithful wake And I unfaithful to my bones prepare For restless sleep to shut the system down, Yet in some corner of the self, aware That I knower of nothing hardly see The present, living the diminished past Still strong enough to fill the heart with grief, And memories the mind cannot outlast. What have they seen? I am of little worth To mine own eyes, a cipher valueless, Caught in the web without the will to break The old desires, let the soul confess Its firm allegiance to the growing light That spreads across the earth so quietly Gaining in strength to swallow up the dark Resi

Years After the Passing of Mary Helen Eyes dimmed by death that once all life embraced, Mute the voice that spoke of beauty's reign A vibrant heart by the dark shade now stilled, Her soul released to soar beyond the pain Earth visits on the children of the light. The rhythms of the dance lived in her limbs, Her path an ordered march to worlds divine, A music like the strophes of choral hymns I heard in the pulsing rapture of her heart. The brilliance of the golden summer skies, Peony on bursting peony Could not surpass the lustre of her eyes. The humble dogwood clothed in clouds of white, The nodding columbine

Day of Birth and Second Birth O Mere divine, I worship at Thy feet For never did one need Thee so as I, In the face of every stranger that I meet, Behind, unmasked, it is the Deity. On this day of birth and second birth When the opening of soul is at its peak I who have trod the fragrant lands of earth Have grown aware it is only Thee I seek. In beauty and in violence I greet The master of all lives who reigns with Thee, In the stillness of my meditation's seat, From the highest Kanchenjunga to the sea, In the shrine within the heart I sing Thy name Acknowledging the honour and the boon, For Thee alone Thy children

Mother Descending the Stairs No photographic splendour of the night Or opalescent nebulae in space Could fill the yearning heart with more delight Than Her descent in a white cloud of grace. They saw Her as a flame of brilliant rays Moving along the balcony or street, Vanquishing the demons of our days. I only saw Her soft sandaled feet, Her hand upon the polished balustrade, Her eyes that held the world in their embrace Her loveliness that made earth's beauty fade, Divine compassion etched upon Her face, And O, the silken softness of Her hair, – I wept to see Her sweetly standing there.

The Clear and Sunlit Way A longing that constrains the breath, Hopes that will not die, A certitude outlasting death And life's indignity. A dream of unpolluted earth, The blue of crystal skies, A crucible for higher birth And heaven's majesties. Descend once more O stainless feet, Touch our sacred soil, Cleanse our hearts of all deceit That we may knowing toil To hasten the advent of the day The centuries have sought, Walk now the clear and sunlit way Transcending mortal thought.

Transforming Light A heart that longs unable yet to soar, A body bound by cords of ignorance A soul alive to beauty at its core Silent still as in a natal trance. The mind is too much master of our days The vital man of unfulfilled desire, What room is there for rapture or for grace When thought is but an unrelenting gyre. The fields of our forgetfulness are sown With the scattered bones of promises unfilled The cluttered inner landscape overgrown, The soil of our awakening untilled. The key is given and unlocked the gate That opens on transcendent images, Eternal scenes of sweetness that await The traveller spirit throu

Until the Soul's Awakening We step unknowing to a worldly dance Moved by rhythms from an unknown past, In the uncertainty of time and chance Our lives like straws by the winds of fate are cast. Under the tree of life we fall asleep, Unconscious bodies formed by conscious will, And wake to find the way is hard and steep Half mindful of the compacts we must fill. The lingering memories of old desires The fantasies of adolescent years, Suppress the ageless spirit that aspires, Hide from us the heavenly frontiers. What can we see without the sage's eyes? To the frantic pace of hurried days we cling And all the gold b