She Who Labours Here Then shall we stand iron-willed for Life Against the tides of time that on us rush While death raps daily at the body's door, Or to our human weaknesses succumb And many lives' travail sum up to nought, Or call a higher power in the cells, A flame to light the darkened cave of mind And calm's descent into the frantic pace Of impulses, antagonists of peace That move our arms to slay, our hearts to hate And boil the blood with insatiable desire Or drown us in a torpor of malaise? I hav

For my beloved Tehmi Place Her Softly Now Wipe the tears of sleep from aged eyes No more to witness this world's joy and pain, Close them gently let the spirit fly To rest above the sorrows of this sphere That turns upon a spindle moved by God. For we, remaining, surely have been blessed By those great spirits oft descended here Who cast their godlike glance upon this scene Of human folly where we in ignorance Seek for love in barren fields of clay And tormented deserts, parched and impotent. Heaven's chosen in our lives appear From an unknown hand bestowing gifts of grace To lift our fallen heads that we may se

From the Ashes of Our Sorrow Now far from those with whom I share the quest In a solitary scene I pace the days And wander in a state of soul unrest Uncertain in a dull and gathering haze. It seems the spirit cannot overcome The human heart's propensity for grief For all the mental faculties are numb And I founder on a godforsaken reef. Although safe passage looms the will is weak The exit wounds of centuries I feel From arrogant unconsciousness to meek Subservience upon my being's seal. I have seen the great sarcophagi of kings In darkened naves where stained glass marries dust, In the great cathedral solitary rings

Fireweed We saw vast fields of time's immortal flowers Ablaze beneath the pale Alaskan sun And stood on glaciers carved in primeval hours Who watched earth born, destroyed, again begun. We wandered there at twilight and I knew This place my spirit recognized as home, A world of icy splendour shot with blue Surrounded by a sea of frozen foam. White were the skies at the season's too-swift end, The whales moved southward to a warmer tide, If only once all time I might suspend Beloved friend, eternal summer's bride, I would wish this moment be immortal made, And yet how can undying love fade?

Now You Are Gone Oh my beloved what further can I say I have not uttered time and time again Who face the perils of uncertain day Now you are gone and I alone remain? I would not have it thus but words are weak And powerless without the force to change, And peace eludes, the Presence that I seek Though once so near seems now so far and strange, Elusive as the ageless mystery No mind can comprehend or thought ensnare, Uncertain as the earth is to the sea And all the foreign life that blossoms there. Our love is blazoned on my yearning heart, Each dawn recalls the beauty of your eyes, My cherished soul's undying counterpart; W

A New Year Dawns A new year dawns, bringer of promises And to the thirsting earth a grace-filled rain. Happy sounds of "Bonne Annee" are heard Renewing hope that peace we might attain. Absorbed in meditative poise they sit Disciples in a still environment, A courtyard sanctified and richly blessed That holds the mystery of God's descent. Morning comes pregnant with new birth And prayers that our tormented earth might find An end to ignorance and war and greed And wake to purpose of a nobler kind. I sit in contemplation's simple room Emptied for a moment of the past, Seeking a silence to penetrate the cells, A calm uns

The Near Approach to God The winter season hangs upon my soul Its memory of death, the loved one lost, Though spring returns reminded of the goal The heart in waves of sorrow still is tossed. Once poetry rained down like molten tears From unknown founts upon a grief-torn face And all the world lay foundering in fears, To beauty lost in animal disgrace. Returning to the Source I came again To that still place, the habitat of love And for a time, released from human pain Received assurance from the gods above That life no

In The Chamber In an eternal house in human time We sit in silence and a timeless space Surrounds us as we watch the spirit climb Above our sorrows and our sins outpace. A force of the profound immeasurable Describes within the stillness of the soul The ways of light, the path accessible To the fearless who relinquish mind's control. One has lit the sun that beacons clear Upon the crystal in its golden base A plenitude of peace has channelled here, Resident in every human face. A calm is felt as tangible as touch, The quickened heart with a Presence fills, In this dwelling-place of God the ego's clutch Is gone with gri

Immortal Joy It is the time of green springing moss, The first primeval heaving of the earth, From winter's death and irreversible loss A season comes of new and fruitful birth. It is not the spring beloved of youthful times Or the gentle blossoming of warmer isles But a panoply of Nature as she climbs From her sodden monsoon bed and brightly smiles In sunburst and the brilliant songs of trees Richly adorned, ablaze in waves of heat, Flying their coloured scarves upon the breeze And all the worshipping earth at Her feet. I hear the sound of silent augur wings And feel immortal joy in mortal things.

In Her Is My Eternity As a youth life seemed to me An underlying unity. I walked through wastelands of despair And saw my spirit dwelling there. No wealth had I yet wealth was mine, In every tree a force divine Flowed in beauty as a stream, Reality as true as dream. The flowers in my childhood hand Treasures soul could understand Whom Nature fostered as a friend, And in the days at childhood's end Brought new vistas to explore, Opening the azure door To worlds beyond and worlds within Realms of beauty, haunts of sin. The sense-life's wild and frenzied dance In vital-nature's ambiance Attracted as a moth to flame