Winter Haiku - Scroll III Frozen leaf At water's edge Freedom comes with Spring's release. Silent snow Softly falls Covering our pain and grief. Ice crystals Pattern the glass, Moonbeams dance among the trees. Last night the snow Soft and deep Rocked the weary world to sleep.

In An Ancient Cathedral Icons staring towards a viewless place Candles representatives of prayer, Flicker and glow in the dim cathedral space As frankincense weighs heavy on the air. A priest intones the holy liturgy In sumptuous vestments sewn with threads of gold, The choir chants with solemn dignity And ancient women huddle in a fold Like creatures drawn to a lone shepherd's call. Here for awhile the faithful congregate To hear the solemn music's rise and fall, To think, to pray, perhaps to meditate, The soul's reflection on God's sacrifice, Wondering at the message of it all When through these doors the ways of sin a

Indelible His Stamp The empty streets I've walked Filled with tomorrow's dreams, Of endless visions talked Until the morning's gleams Washed over brick and stone And called me to my bed Restless and alone, By creative forces led Or delusions of the mind; Possibilities And plans of very kind, Potentialities. Then slowly I awoke To wonder couched within, First shedding of the cloak Of ego to begin. Called by an unheard Voice, Moved by unmoving Force My spirit could rejoice Upon its upward course. But now the gift of years, The helpmate of my soul Is gone and half-spent tears Obscure the lon

Mystic Rose Where time is not my spirit seeks release, Or press of life-desires, vital needs, The endless recollections of the heart And memories like scattered milkweed seeds Blown across the vistas of the soul. I know that good shall prosper and take root For we shall harvest sheaves of consciousness And softly as the playing of a lute Will live to hear a music sweet and fair, Partake of vision from those realms above Descending here and rising from below When earth is touched by healing feet of love. The joy we yearn for now shall draw us close As petal by petal opens the mystic rose.

Mother and Sister By Cancer Claimed In those timeless seconds before death The spirit often moves the wasted form And in the moment of the final breath To a higher power body does conform. I've witnessed acts of love beyond compare. Consider this, my mother's wasted frame Her body rigid, her pain too great to bear. As she cried for Demerol I came Injected her and gave her brief release, Then oxygen and watched her failing breath As she began to fade and the disease Now rampant claimed her soul for death. But she refused to yield to the great Shade Impossibly turned her head to see her love And smiled on him,

The Dawning Godhead The stings of death occur less often now As I towards some silent grandeur move And healing streams of peace within me flow Quickening the universal love. Mind cannot grasp the need for body's fall, Revolts at human suffering and pain, The soul's desire to leave it would forestall, Uncertain if its consciousness remain Beyond the final breath, the fated hour, Or if it turn to dust beneath the stars. The spirit knows the form is but a flower That dies to be reborn and from the scars Of earth's travail enlightenment shall come. The soul incarnate cannot disappear, With every birth assumes a brighter home,

Before Time's Done - To Mary Helen I walked upon love's path enfolding thee, A soul that seemed at times too rare a gift For one as I who lived so vitally, A child embracing Nature's vast uplift. But then the heart recalls the joy of days Among the laughing flowers, kindly trees, Communicants with Nature in her ways And moments filled with happiness and ease. We marvelled at the brilliant flare of sky Appearing as the red sun disappears Or a lone bird's notes of soulful ecstasy When all the multi-coloured morning nears. I'll meet thee once again before time's done, Thy shining soul illumining my sight As stars

For Mary Helen 2/18/02 Beloved Soul Departing O sovereign of my soul the dreadful fight Is ended now, all grief She will dismiss, All sorrow dies in us for in Her light Pain is not and all is conscious bliss. Thy dimming eyes that held the light of seers, Thy lips that spoke but rarely yet with ease In measured words from immemorial spheres Are silenced in His deep eternal peace. Friend, sacrificant, companion, wife Who cast on all thy wide and luminous gaze A last long look on all the joy of life, Now sweetly sleep beyond our troubled days.

Wonders And Beatitudes Untold It hangs on the horizon warm and bright A golden agate in the eye of night. Trees in splendour burn, the woods alive With autumn-song earth alone can give And knowing this my spirit shall survive Irreparable loss and deepest grief. My soul on waters floating as a leaf On streams of consciousness I hardly know, Towards oceans of felicity I go The force of God holds me in its tow. I pass by banks of beauty flower-strewn And fields of youth where memories in ruin Lay scattered and my dreams unrealised, The music of the stars my heart surprised In soul's deep chambers sounds I recognized

Bud of the Mystic Rose The scattered leaves are left alone Lying where they fell, The grass unkempt, no twig or stone Removed, the crows rebel Against my presence in the glass. Mallard families fly And hawks perform a circling pass, Watchers of the sky. I have become an enigma's knot Unknowing and sadly, blind, A speck or insubstantial dot, A dull unconscious mind That struggles vainly to no avail To grasp such tragedy, Each test along the Way I fail, Night my company. All is strange and strangely still A dark and yawning gap, Absent of the driving will, Caught in memory's trap. How long this e