With Second Sight As from the pages of a treasured book There leaps to view a vision of the goal Or phrase that shoots directly to the soul, I knelt transfixed by Her penetrating look, Awakened in this embodiment I saw Falsehood's end and grief by love subdued. She spoke as I bowed and gazed in awe, Through her the sacred covenant renewed. I was filled with joy I could not comprehend And saw in Her earth's d

Three Haiku to the Brain-Fever Bird In the blazing heat He laughs at me, "Brain-fever, his fanatic cry." Brain-fever bird Shouting with joy In the burning sun of India. Half-mad bird Shouts gleefully "Brain-fever!" in the white-hot haze.

The Frightened Child I looked into the eyes of the frightened child Sitting on the road as bullets flew And bursting bombs fell on his village home. A shuddering such as I had never seen Racked his tiny frame as he held his knees And it shook me as I saw the fear in him No child, no soul should ever bear or know. (Black heart of man in whom such evil lives!) As if sorrow grew upon a hollow reed And called the wind to sing its threnody, I saw him sway in horror and I was crushed; The marrow in my bones seemed to cry; I was shaken then and I am shaken now.

Transform This Clay Nothing but shadows in a land of light. Is it only a reflection that I see Or is the Self invisible as night That hides the face of the unknown deity. Are all these songs I've sung disjointed strains Of music in the being still unheard, These thoughts but scraps of knowledge in the lanes Of wisdom while I wait the changing word? My prayers quiescent now as bloom in seed And faint the whisper of my spirit's call, What use have I to nurture earthly need Who knew the Guide to whom I offered all. Come once again, O golden One, O come Transform this clay into your earthly home.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram  Jan. 21, 2011 And we by an incalculable grace Are here among the blessed of the blest, With time to undo the karmic knots of past, Unfinished deeds and dramas yet to come In future births in a world that shall outlast Man's greed and savagery and shall contest His very existence, the future of the race. We being called by an inexorable sound As if the OM of all the ages heard In the dim and listening spaces of the soul Brought forth the aspiration to travel home Gravitating and seeking towards a goal So vast and true, the ineluctable Word Implante

Truths We Cannot See What wakes in vision are truths we cannot see When mind is occupied with worldly things And dreams are visions too but once removed, Those hidden glimpses of eternity. The sunlight bathes my soul in lambent rays, The forests call me to their dense retreat, The morning sings to me its hymn of praise And earth's green swards beckon my pilgrim feet. Of earth's demand for beauty I am moved And perfection latent in all descended here, And from some inner eye the golden-hooved Stallion bears the flaming Kalki near. Peace comes on me as a Mother's gentle hand, An inner rapture steals the heart to bliss I suff

At My Front Door The bringer of silence in his car of peace Came silently to my front door; I heard him not, the days of ease So filled my mind no witness bore To his sweet call at my front door. O would I now that peace attend I would not stray as I did before When to my pleasure I saw no end And to my grief gave full assent. Three times he knocked, or was it four, Upon the threshold, then he went. What loss if he should come no more! Now in the rush of days I wait Silently to hear his feet, Perhaps tonight when the hour is late And the moon is bright we yet may meet. My soul shall surely recognize The One who

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 fe

To One Whose Sorrow Cannot Ebb You have not felt the burden of lonely years Or known in cold nights memory that sears And chills the blood, invades the heart and mind Brings to searching blinded eyes the tears Of relentless sorrow solace cannot bind. You have not seen the servant depart in peace Or watched the cancer of the world increase. The tears you shed are of the ego-kind And nether forces that use as they please Until we grow and higher nature find. There are those descended here who brought the light And placed it in the bowels of the night, And though the clouds of doubt obscure their sun And death retains awhile

A Poem to the OM Choir In This Consecrated Hall 01/17/07 Such joy pervades this night of gathered souls, As if the tread of silent angel feet Quicken the earth and wake from sleep and dream The Presence in the heart of all who sing. A gracious harmony, a pure delight Descends into this living house of God, A music now we hear unheard before Or only in the unattainable spheres; Hearts are charged and holy bodies glow, A force divine unites our disparate lives, In this consecrated hall our oneness find In essence and in offering