For Mary Helen Do Not Cling To the Past All Nature is too beautiful this year. It is as if her soul remaining blessed Before its last ascent this earthly sphere That shall no longer feel upon its breast Her joyous tread though still the peace descends; But O the heart can hardly hold this day Whose glory all our human grief suspends, For God in darkness ever lights our way. I try to capture on transparencies Colours that transcend the imaged eye With subtleties that thrill and moods that ease The pain that lingers long when loved ones die. We must not lie in sorrow's arms too long. I hear a voice: "Do not cling t

Spring-Song to Mother The golden trumpets of the daffodils Shall wake again the wonder that has lain Quiescent in this time of earthly ills, Death and unimaginable pain. Spring shall come with all its cleansing rites To sweep the sorrow from this house of woe, Unwelcome visitant of days and nights Who blocks the road on which my soul must go That I may see all happenings as grace; For nothing that we love shall ere depart. I look upon the beauty of a face Long known within the chamber of my heart.

Within Our Mortal Form The rapid change that only death can bring To those for whom the soul and flesh were one Is on me now, a great and awesome thing, A further journey into God begun. Canterbury, Glastonbury, Kent, Have I not walked these ancient sites before, The grail pursued, the occult curtain rent Revealing a face to worship and adore. Is there a land or sky we have not seen In former births and astral wanderings, What have we missed, what force has come between Our realizations and awakenings. Have we not slept a body's dreamlike sleep Forgetting spirit in this brief life-storm, What vast experiences do we keep

What Do We Know What do we know of life who have not borne In plenitude her sorrows and her pain Or struggled with a darkness of the heart And demon-thoughts that plague the tortured brain. What do we know of love who have not felt Its million pulses coursing through the heart, Before the sacred image bowed and knelt, Moved by the supreme creator's art. What do we know of God who have not seen His face in all the warring tribes of men Acknowledged Him in good or vile and mean, Turned away and back to Him again. What do we know of man who have not found The unity that marries all as one, The harmony that finds a higher ground, A

For Mary Helen 2/14/02 Beneath Her Blossom-Feet I cannot share the pain that clouds her eyes, The fire raging through the body's walls Or offer her the weal of Paradise For each alone must hear the clarion-calls. Yet humanly we laugh, we cry, we care And somehow seem to share each other's grief And having dwelt in love's untainted air Awhile we walk as one in one belief, - That every step is seen, each action known By Him we name as God or Deity, Through sorrow and joy our souls aware have grown In birth's unnumber

I Shall Remember Thee - To Mary Helen Where beauty lives I shall remember thee, In music's strains that touch diviner chords In river-song, the forest's poetry And flowers dotting green and golden swards, In fleeting clouds beneath the blaze of sun Or when I gaze on the eternal sea, Recall the years we two have lived as one Tracing the path of inner harmony. In all that is refined I'll note thy care And when I view the order of the stars Knowing thee close though I am unaware I'll feel thy fingers lightly trace the scars That pain has seared across my wanting soul, For all the suffering I saw thee bear, Thy spirit growing t

The Shores of Oblivion I looked out at the emptiness of space, Haunted by the vision of a face Remembered in the reaches of the soul And heard far-off the bells of mercy toll As I walked upon the shores of oblivion. I saw the dying year, petal fall And leaf fall and heard the wild drake's call, Knew loneliness so deep within me well As I gazed and faced the vastitude of hell And I stood upon the shores of oblivion. I felt the waves lapping at my feet And in the distance sailing Death's grey fleet Carried souls into the unlit spheres And wasting on the sands my useless tears Stared at an ocean of oblivion. When nothing

Soul in Deathless Flight I have succumbed to sorrow once again Though beauty poured her essences on me Yet on the death of loveliness my pain Welled up as on a dark and storm-filled sea A solitary barc is tossed and thrown, Submerged by crushing waves, uncaring tides, The inner being capsized, stranded, lone, Upon these unknown shores where danger hides. In the uncharted waters of the dawn The soul recovered from the shocks of fate, For aspiration ever is reborn, Has once again set sail – the hour is late. A white bird soars in alabaster skies Ascending stage by stage the realms of light, Planing now he rests, again to

Purify Me Look upon me Mother and excise The darknesses that still within me lie, Purify my heart to through-compose The music of emerging deity. Purify my voice that I may sing Melodies of spirit new to earth, The harmonies that move men's heart to strive And seek for God and spirit's true rebirth. Play through this instrument thy godlike notes, Strains that call the troubled mind to peace, Songs that lie within the soul of things And grant from ego's grip the soul's release. As shepherd's fluting to their wayward flocks Or evensong as children rock to sleep, Music of the power to transform Be heard among the chant of sorrows dee

Beloved Mary Helen – In Memoriam I held her dying in my helpless arms, Powerless and impotent to save And called upon her spirit heaven's balms. My human love such as it is I gave And every prayer addressing Him I said, To light the pathway to her rest and peace And bless this cherished soul on Death's grey bed And from the body's temple grant release; But mostly prayers of the heart's gratitude. Aware that she was in a state of grace, This moment of life's final interlude That every soul now born on earth must face. I think of the more I might have been and done Unworthy of the love embracing me This aura bri