Prayer November 16, 1998 Sri Aurobindo before Thee I place this prayer. Sincerity first, above all else bestow, The Will to surrender, all narrowness forswear, Annihilation of the awesome foe, Calm to front the chaos of the days, Humility before the Divine in waking and sleep, Her Name upon my lips, my soul to keep, Strength to stay the long and arduous ways. Humility on waking and in sleep.

On Reading Savitri Sept. 6, 1999 In mantric lines of breadth and majesty Charged with the force of a God-poet's will, Whose peace descends illumining to fill With sudden light the moved and quickened heart By revelation's clear unerring art, To reason unknowable, lest all falls still, And then by beauty overwhelmed and the thrill Of a grandiose vision vast with potency.

Death and Rebirth Those whom I've loved around me fall As falls the sun from a perfect day Releasing the imprisoned fire-bird To soar from out the failing clay. Grief as a stranger visits me And finds no welcome at my door For deep within my soul I keep These spirits who have gone before. There is no time for vital tears And sadness that would camp in me With still such prayer and long travail To set the psychic being free. For man shall know divine rebirth When Supermind appears on earth.

To Mary Helen: Child of Light Realizing Beatitude I have seen her in the morning's gentle light Arising from her bed of fitful sleep And tightly in her hand the flower petals, Blessing packets, and the sacred sand. Humbled by her silent inner strength, Her deeps of trust, her offering of self, I watch the steady progress of her days And the rapid flowering marvel of her soul. I can see not with these clouded mortal eyes The radiant dawn of supramental light Aglow upon the horizon of the world, But feel its approaching hour swift within.

Weltschmerz May 1999 Thus the sadness born in mortal things That tempers joy and breaks the spirit's wings And even in our happiest moments brings A tear to songs the earth-bound singer sings.

To Mary Helen August 25, 1999 Now I am calm in silent depths of mind And harvest joy in roughened thankful hands As autumn comes and our gardens find The Mother's imprint on these sacred lands. By the still lake reflecting on life's events The years of our seeking pass slowly in pensive mood, A smile wells up as I inhale the scents Blossoming on a branch of gratitude. So many years upon the wheel of time Weaving the wondrous patterns of the worl

Karmic Chains Help me to clear a path to Thee Through the rubble of old desires, A minefield of subconscious pulls And smouldering vital fires. Slowly I grow aware by day Of thy Grace sustaining me Through all our betrayals, great and small Shaping our destiny. Mind cannot grasp the awesome gift Of Thy Presence upon the earth And Thy body's untold sacrifice Accepting human birth, To prepare the world for the vast descent Of the supramental light And the advent of the Superman Lifting the veil of night.

Music of the Spheres A single sound of infinite harmonies Filtered through the density of mind Illumining with the rapture of the spheres This singer, with a song of consciousness, A heavenly rhapsody falling on the ear. All earthly music pales before these chords Descending, as the sound of celestial choirs Enveloping soul in radiant passages As an organ's massive diapason swells. Only once these melodies of light Were heard in a silent moment of the soul, But their strains resound and ever shall remain A gift outlasting all recorded Time.

Sonnet to a Friend and Brother Have I through unconscious act or oversight Offended thee for whom I hold such love, A friend and brother joined in the sanctioned fight To cleave the darkness and find the light above. If I could soar the winds and meet thee fair Upon the lanes you tread to your beckoning goal My spirit would bear in that charged and sanctified air The warm embrace of soul to brother soul. But still the human distance hinders me And human cares not trusting full the light That joins our paths upon eternity And frees us from the python coils of night. In silent prayer and gratitude I wait The mystic

Call of the Flute Soft by my side and calm she lay Warm against the driving rain That chilled the heart of the waking day And I knew we'd not go back again, To a life half-conscious, half-aware Half-lost in the finite dreams of earth With the psychic being standing there And the hour come of the soul's rebirth. Now with the call of a crystal flute The moment arrives and shall not flee, Silent and in the silence mute We will to set the caged birds free To fly to Her feet and there alight In Her golden ray upborne from Night.