Haiku in the Ashram Disciples kneel And offer prayers Parrots screech a litany. Disciples cross Crowded streets Lost in reveries of God. In the Dining Hall Elder sadhak's Snow-white beard Stained with yellow dal.

Stasis I weep an old man's tears So quickly do I age, Old beyond my numbered years And on this dimming stage I walk by sorrow hailed In the uncompassed night, The will to seek abruptly failed As failed the inner sight. All joy has fled the heart As my beloved's breath, Dying I held her body close And felt the chill of death Upon those cherished limbs, Yet could not feel her pain As she traversed alone those spheres Denied to mortal men. And now the iris bloom And fragrant peonies flush The garden is a wonder-loom, Every tree and bush A pedestal for song. In this enamoured air One cannot hold a sadness lon

Beloved Soul Departed - For Mary Helen What gentleness of spirit wedded me To heights alone my being could not scale, What miracle of occult chemistry United us through all our life's travail? Threaded though the fabric of my days A love that turned my coarse-spun thread to gold A light that in the denseness of my ways Held bright and true its gracious gifts untold. For we have truly lived and truly loved Beyond desire and the body's need, Together towards the Infinite Secret moved, The flowering in man of Godhead's seed. O soul so pure who all my days have blessed Peace shall on thy pain-filled bosom rest.

The Glorious Renaissance We come to Thee mendicants of Grace Who hold false claim to everything we own, O Avatar of the golden Way What grandeur's seed in earth Thy hand hast sown, The world to save from man's destructive rage. Allured to darkness and satanic guile Though Presences divine await his call All sacred things his blood-lust would defile. Yet Thou hast come to temper coarsened steel And hone the blade to shore through evil's chain, Return man to his heritage of love, Reclaim the earth for spirit's sole domain. Stronger now the voice within our depths Exhorts us to be masters of our fate, And from the wellsprin

Instrument of Life A heavy gravitation's dissembling force Threatens to dissolve this house of flesh, Shatter the frail remains of skeletal mind Or press into some purgatorial night This withered empty form now love has fled. All hangs beclouded in unsubstantial air Where once the sun so brightly did bestrew Our world with flowers, canopied with trees Our carpeted path until untimely death Divided twain no earthly force could part. And now compelled by tears of loss I drift In penitential nights and frustrate days Benumbed by sorrow and by grief belayed. And yet, despite the darkness of the days, Amid the movement of mechanic

To See Beyond the Bourne of Years The melodies of angels once I heard, Through God in human form the timeless Word, And then I found a heaven here on earth, Was present at the sacred city's birth. The poetry of life was sung to me From highest limb on every flowered tree, I joined the souls who knelt before Her feet And knew my spirit's ageless quest complete. We all came there to breathe Her atmosphere, Those who would rip illusion's veil drew near, The greedy with unholy appetite, The weak who would find succour in Her Might. We came to work the central problem out, Those who believed and those who harboured dou

Winter Haiku - Scroll 1 King Winter comes, The maple tree Blushes red at his approach. I break the ice In the water tray The chickadee still scolding me. The purple coat Of the dogwood tree Buttoned with the buds of spring. Somewhere frozen Beneath the lake Water lilies dream of Spring.

Haiku for Mary Helen Vision of grace Beloved wife Smile upon our struggling race.

The Great Discovery What profit if we someday reach the stars, Or having learned to navigate the moon Set sail to see if there was life on Mars? We rape, we kill and ever we repugn The spirit's call, its plea to seek within. Explorers of the ultimate frontier, Abjure this life of ignorance and sin, By inner growth draw the heavens near. The world is breaking up, a new design Of harmony oppresses with its light The 'isms' of the past – we must resign From death and evil working, reunite The waylost soul with godhead's destiny And we shall find the great discovery.

The Great of God 1/15/02 I met the Great of God unknown to man Who purified of all ignoble traits Work to manifest the overman Who dwells in calm seclusion by our gates. Spirits who were the force behind all art, The flowering of pure creative souls, The majesty of minds that lived apart From common thoughts and lure of common goals. I watched them move in their unhurried ways Devotees and realised beings who came To meet the mighty Mother and to raise This earthly kind to the Immortal's flame. They li