Recognize Thy Face The news exacerbates our fears, And if we care at all As shattered writhen bodies fall Eat our bread with tears. Will peace yet dawn among this race Mortal yet half-divine, Who demons harbour to disgrace This being that is Thine? I remember Auden's lines: ". . . the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye." How aptly he defines The hate that lives in humankind, Fanaticism's field – Is there a key we still might find And every being yield To love and every heart embrace The spirit's ageless cry, In every soul that passes by Recognize Thy face.

Alone With Time and God On the ninth day of the ninth month the trees Resplendent in their 'Joseph's Coat' grew still, The failing of the year by slow degrees Was felt in night's descent and sudden chill. The vapours from the surface of the lake Rose billowing in white phantasmal forms Yet sorrow all this beauty could not slake Nor quell within the fierce and violent storms That fall upon the soul in time of loss. I walk upon the paths our feet had trod, The soft pine-straw and deeply yielding moss And feel myself alone with time and God. The wind whips through this fragile house of clay And rain like tears consecrates my da

Remembered Fields of Light (11/20/02) Was Arthur King of Brittany, the Bear, My kin and brother in those ages past Or was I he who wed fair Guinevere Whose destiny with Lancelot was cast? Why do the pains of centuries recur In moments when my heart envisions her Or when I listen close and hear the call To battle from the mouths of vanished kings, And know my armour's sound in that great hall, Aware these are no vain imaginings, For I am there again in other space, On the face of time

Balcony Darshan – The Soul Looks Back I saw Her once in golden air Moving on jewelled feet, A vision of grandeur passing fair, Love divine replete. Alone I stood with a thousand eyes Fixed on Her balcony Awaiting a moment of Paradise, But then She cast on me The diamond gaze of God's delight. I felt a physical blow, Her spinning orbs drove through my sight, What seeds did She there sow? Only the passing of the years And stilling of the mind Or moments when the Grace appears Enable me to find Her marvel-changes wrought within, Moulding new harmonies, Wearing the shell of ego thin To gain

With Clear and Steadfast Eyes I, tender of the flame depart Too frequently the light Deep within the cavern of my heart. There seems no will to fight These demons of desire and of mind. Ever the same old moves, In narrow circles is their play defined And empty, hollow grooves. Yet I succumb and cannot rise above As yet their little play, I know not how to consecrate nor love, So often do I stray. The fire burns and will reduce to ash These hostile entities Who torture with delight or with the lash Aspiring devotees, Rejoice in every great or small defeat, Theirs to tempt and halt The souls who

For Mary Helen Beauty Shall Walk Unwounded through the World Deep in the chalice of the lily's bloom A secret hides beneath the stamens' crown, Golden, quivering in the slightest breeze. For in her dew-drenched cup silent love Abides and mystery yields to those pure souls Whom God has touched, unburdened of the cares That press on mind, the troubling of desire And whisper of dark voices in the night. Hold me beloved in thy vast surround. I need no human limbs to twine me round Or human lips to seal love's covenant For I have gone beyond the bordered world. O essence of all perfumes, spirit divine, Who wh

In the Forests of My Youth The hemlocks grew, clothed in dark-robed dreams, Their silent brooding spaces called to me To follow a winding path by laughing streams That spoke in tongues of ancient mystery. The feel of peat upon the forest floor And silence broken by a winged call Revealed to me a closed and hidden door To wonder that a child-soul might befall. Partaker of the gifts of centuries, Never to feel a poverty of heart Embraced by soaring miracles as these A soul entranced, from other lives apart. Fifty years have flown since those bright days When first I heard the rapture-song abroad The verdant fields, the m

Alone With God The loveliness of hills, the lakes, the streams, The waterfalls we visited, the skies Above our days so sanctified by love, And the haunting sapphire beauty of her eyes. . . We walked upon a path unseen, unknown, And heard the footsteps and the Voice that called Echoing through the corridors of time. I face thee Death, humbled yet unappalled, For One who lit the fires of the sun, The same created thee and this I know, My destiny is clear, through centuries And all the seasons of my soul I grow. The heavens and the earthly lanes I've trod And at the end shall stand alone with God.

Transformateur and Friend Then sudden death with his remorseless eye Appeared, a spectral shape at light of day, Inhaled the final breath and with a sigh She left the shell of beauty where it lay. I know he is a timely boon to those Outgrown the body's elasticity, Departing mid the attar of the rose This beautiful and frail mortality. I too have lived and died in other times But only vague remembrances persist Approaching earth from distant stars and climes The human path unable to resist. I know a day will come when the grey shade Will die in light, his usefulness at end, His fateful presence sere and chill remad

She Who Is Our Destiny What force, what flame was resident in Her That royalty and commoner did bow In humble reverence the soul to stir From dreamless sleep in body's candle-glow, To slough the coil of torpor and arise In joyous deep obeisance and to kneel Before those stainless feet, those burning eyes That held a love all human clay could feel. What giving of ourselves could we deny To Her the Gift beyond our worth and due, The sanctioned Grace responsive to our cry Whom we in all our mortal frailty knew As Mother who from occult worlds above Has wrapped this whirling globe in seas of love.