Know Ourselves At Last The sorrow of the world shown in his eyes, The poison man inflicts on the divine, His gifts returned unopened, life denies The beauty and the sacrificial wine Of love and truth, the blessings infinite. Enamoured still of dark, unchanged we toil And still upon our heads he pours delight, Invests his peace upon our mortal soil That unimpeded we may grow towards light Divested of the burden of the past, Remove the blinders that occlude our sight And in his presence know ourselves at last.

Supreme Delight Feb. 12, 2011 The soundless owls startled into flight Circle the banyan and return to rest In the hollows sculpted from the living branch. It is the fruiting season and the figs Draw flocks of parrots, mynah birds and more To feast and laugh and raucous, celebrate The season of the plentiful delight. We sit beneath the tree and meditate As bits and pieces fall upon on our heads, We who would be free of the bonds of night And with each breath inhale supreme

Beyond the Mental Fortress And so it is with all things in this life, We pass unknowing through the doors of fate Or seeming chance directs our every move, We choose to be alone or congregate With others of our kind, the rest we shun Closing the doors of consciousness and light And shut the system down to ease our fears Of the unknown, we have lost the grace of flight. Seldom do we hear and rarely see With the attentive sense that once was ours. We have sacrificed so much yet have not grown Beyond the mental fortress and its towers Built with airy, crumbling blocks of dream. O light that cleaves the darkness of our days

The Immortal Destiny of Man A felonious assault upon the sense, A body bruised and battered by the days Aware that death remains the great offence Troubled is the soul by Nature's ways. One cannot comprehend the millions slain Upon the altar of the 'good' and 'right', The deep necessity of grief and pain, Evil's triumph and the reign of night. We cannot grasp the sole reality Or know the working of a higher plan That executes with supreme simplicity The immortal destiny of man.

Thy Sacrifice Has Bought This longing that strains the very breath, These hopes that will not die, A certitude outlasting death And life's indignity. A dream of unexploited earth, A vision of crystal skies, The crucible for higher birth And heaven's majesties. Descend again with stainless feet O Beauty touch our soil, Cleanse our hearts of all deceit That we may knowing toil And hasten towards the golden day The centuries have sought And walk upon the golden way Thy sacrifice has bought.

God in Human Dress The tender brushing of the lips, No breath to intervene The pulse-beat of infinity Marks an eternal scene. How softly steals the light of love Burning through the eyes And fragrances unknown before Seem borne from Paradise. Embrace of an encircling warmth Ethereal hands caress Desire has no purchase here With God in human dress.

Upon the Waves of Memory I see the glow of love upon her face As if an ember brightened by a breeze, A rose of passion on a fevered cheek, Her pensive mood reveals such signs as these – A soft and lustrous sheen bejewelling skin, Her eyes like distant stars that dazzling beam Their radiance to earth in silver nights And all her movements married as in dream. I tell you friend the signs of love are clear. Your look has changed, you speak a softer tone, And seem to move more quietly and dwell Within her ambiance no more alone. Perhaps I have misread the vital signs And looking back remembered beauty lost; I do not kn

This World Must Change Oct. 17, 2011 Once again this painful memory As I listen to a haunting choral work 'O Sacrum Convivium' intoned Over and over again these harmonies Resound in me yet only sadness reigns And the sorrow of the world on me descends. I pass a paraplegic in a chair Pushed resolutely by a wizened hag And in the chair it is myself I see, Head immense, lolling, the twisted form, Distorted face, passionless and mute. The tears unbidden flow – this world must change And grief give

All Created Things Shall Yield And when these eyelids close in final sleep I will depart knowing I heard love's call, Was loved beyond all measurements of man, Most divine and true, embracing all, Above the heart's desire, body's need, Beyond mind's smallness and its clutching greed, Love that soars in temples to the Gods Expressed in music's waves or chiselled stone Passionate in flow, not passion-filled, A universal love not to man alone But

Rose of the Presence Mystical Rose of the presence mystical Blossom a fire in my heart, Leap up, O Flame, consume the past That I your splendour's counterpart With all my ignorance unrobed Bare to the very bones of me, Protecting thorns to fall away, Revealed your perfumed mystery, Your beauty vying with the dawn In rainbows of perfection's hues Shed delight in prayerful hands No longer beauty to misuse By careless touch and straying eyes But drink the draughts of Paradise.