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.

In Tibet (11/21/02) When I first read about the butter lamps I could smell the smoke that filled the spacious halls And darkened tapestries on temple walls I heard the call of bells in far-off camps And stars like candles in the frozen night Appeared as on the table of a King, I knew the song the spinning prayer-wheels sing And recognized this strange familiar site As one who passes through a childhood town Remembers lanes forgotten by the rest, Knows secrets no adult has ever guessed And every path his feet have travelled down. I saw in vision's cle

Passing of an Eternal Flame - For Mary Helen I have known a love transcending human love Who sought with grace and dignity to find Her soul's directive beckoning above And rose to touch the feet of heaven-kind. One who chose the earth for her domain To incarnate in human form and strive, Accepting sorrow and accepting pain That the hour of God in all may soon arrive. I stood the vigil as her breathing slowed Repeating constantly the sacred Name Upward the life-force in her gently flowed The silent passing of an eternal flame.

Loss and Remembrance I understand the poignancy and pain Of kings who suffered irreparable loss, Who owning all no longer did retain Aught but sorrow and her maid, remorse, Who built their mausoleums and their tombs Remembrances of grief they could not bear And lay in gardens redolent with blooms The bones of the beloved and the fair. And if they had their life to live again To see the cherished smile, the warm embrace, Would they requite all wealth for the sole gain Of eyes beheld on Beauty's worshipped face, Meet all the unfair challenges of fate With equal heart, accept the peasant's toil, The labourer whom all manipula

The Word that New-Creates Too frail our language still to speak of love Or God or Joy, too wanting are our words. A language growing by experience We must expand our vision and the sparse Vocabulary of impoverished phrase, Supplant with new-formed terms by light defined That vibrate with the syllables of truth Descended from those greater atmospheres We seldom glimpse and yet must claim as ours. An etymology by God revealed, Our leaps into the unknown conscious grow And all our being vibrate with the Word. We shall one day all nations understand, No language closed to the enlightened mind, No tongue obscure to one who hears beh

No Joy is Lost Soft as a melting dream the flowers fall Upon the dew-filled cushion of the grass, Their life destroyed upon the tempests' squall All fragrance lost and empty is the glass Of sky that held this rainbow of delight, As fade the shades of day when suddenly Is drawn the velvet curtain of the night. And yet no joy is lost, there cannot flee From mind or eye a beauty that has been Or love that filled the chalice of the heart. The brown of earth, her dress of vibrant green Absorbs all change, a thaumaturgist's art, And we who suffer, laugh upon her breast Partake of her renewal and her rest.