When God Comes Down And we shall land this sturdy craft of soul Upon the silver shores of awakening, All facets of our former lives revealed And finally alone with self and God Remake this careworn coat of bone and breath And flesh that cannot last the centuries' Decay and clothe in light the fibres of form When night is but a metaphor of day And death a distant memory in time. There is at work in every soul a force That spins the atom, binds the molecule, Unseen, unfelt it presses on our clay The imprint of the future's plenitude, The miracles that are and are to be Upon this whirling speck among the stars. Man's hope fulfilled to meet

Hold Me Ever Near I ask Thee only this, Let me go deeper still Anoint me with Thy conquering Will, Hold me ever near. But asking this I know Will light the dark below Whatever I must undergo Hold me ever near. All my being cries To see Thee once again And live within the soul's domain, Hold me ever near.

What Bud Unopened? What bud unopened presses toward the Light? It is the mystic rose with my breast. A mask of sorrow covering my sight Precludes the calm that ushers in the Guest. And yet I feel the beating of great wings, Their pinion-shafts preparing now to soar Beyond the bourne of unsubstantial things To break the seals upon the golden door. O spirit-bird fly from this human cage To join your voice in chorus of heaven-song, From silver notes upon a golden page Sing forth the melodies for which I long. I know this hidden rose that slowly swells And grows towards inevitable bloom – Surrender is its soil, from silence well

The Flowers Speak Wherever there is room to grow we bloom And offer to the Host our colours' prayer, We grace the fabric of the Artist's loom And cast our fragrance on His scented air. Beautiful and humble and divine The Garden of the Lord is our domain, Who tends it shall his consciousness refine That He may hear the chant of love's refrain And deeper plunge to consecrate and know That flowers are a symbol of Her grace, The soil prepared our nature then shall grow And blossom in the Spirit's timeless space.

For Mary Helen, Soul at Rest God's Transforming Kiss A little of earth's beauty has been lost. Though difficult to estimate the cost, I believe the joys of which the poets sing Are tinged with hues of sadness and the spring Not quite as bright in beauty as I knew When life rejoiced the loveliness of you And music filled the pages of my days. For love revealed the secret of the ways Two souls by light possessed can recognize The oneness found again in rapture's eyes Beyond the unknown form, the present face. Persisting through

Dawn of God's Delight A greater sorrow falls upon my days Than I have known when faith was still a spark. My spirit in a suffocating box Cries out against the voices of the dark And all the incongruity of death. Memories that open too-deep wounds Like razors slicing through the flesh to soul, For grief in all its violence surrounds Each thought, consumes the mind, the waking hours Fills with turbulence and silent tears. I move a dumb automaton of pain Facing the futile emptiness of years Bereft of the beloved by whose side All life revealed a poetry divine And music flowed a channel pure of love, In dual aspiration hel

Mallard Friends Effortless they fly almost as one Alighting by my window from the lake, Speaking in a tongue I understand Occasionally eating from my hand, This daily ritual of give and take In which I am the true recipient, For I receive their trust, they my food. Their bodies glisten as with crystal tears. For me they leave behind their innate fears, Mallard friends, my feathered brotherhood. An iridescent magic in the sun, A oneness that I rarely feel with man At times they simply come and fall asleep Before my door and I this compact keep, A careful steward of a sacred clan.

When Visited By Love When we no longer carry ego's shield Or halberd of our insignificant thought And see in others enemies to yield On bloodstained fields in senseless battles fought, When we no longer need the taste of tears And open to the wonder of it all, God from our shadowed background reappears Responding to the spirit's urgent call. Then shall we truly wake and realize The One who in each living creature dwells, Who looks on us with calm compassionate eyes As light divine invades our human cells. The lotus from the mire blooms above, So too our lives when visited by love.

Song Ethereal In this song ethereal I felt thy soul ascending Blazing a luminous golden trail, Your love and light unending. Such beauty unseen resides in us And joy we hardly know A subtle unknown nucleus Calls us to forego All transient care and find the source Of joy eluding thought, The rapture free of heart's remorse In godlike moments caught. (Inspired by the second movement of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto)

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.