Childhood Prayer O teach me of birds, the brilliant arrows of flight, For I would soar like them to greet the sun Then fold my ether-wings of burnished light To plunge to earth among her trees, then run And hide my golden form when daylight sleeps. O teach me of the waters of the sea, For I would sound their still mysterious deeps, Their treasure-fields of jewelled artistry, Then leap above those prism'd depths where rise On earth the scented lilies of the spring, Their voices singing to eternal skies In rapture and in and fragrant offering. O speak to me of matter's energies How God creates and why He must destroy, Of beauty's

The Honeyed Lanes Of Paradise I look upon the grasses of the fields, The modest violets blooming through the blades' Exuberance that to my footsteps yields, The play of light, the laugh of greening shades, And song surrounds my wandering this day. He lifts the rosy curtains of the dawn And sunlight burns the shades of night away, His joy is felt upon the scented morn. Tenacious is our hope to live and know, As roots upon the precipice in stone Will grasp minutest crevices to grow, Yet man among his kind is most alone For he has lost his spirit's native home. O Mother the world is in such disarray, Will the dire cat

Days of Grace Remembered - For Mary Helen There was a peace, a deeply seated peace, In all the days I watched her slowly die And even through the pain it did not cease, The bond of His all-knowing surety. But calm eludes me now, has slowly fled And left me in the hands of lonely grief. Humbled by the tributes I have read To her who strove with me in one belief That love is answer to the spirit's call, And time shall heal the human heart of tears, A life divine arise from body's fall. My gratitude for all God's joyous years Bequeathed and all the brilliant days of Grace Remembered as my fair beloved's face.

Room Without Walls We through the green wood walked alone, What thoughts we shared as death upon us stole As the god of ray and beam so brightly shone, Are sealed within the casket of the soul. The morning of romance would slowly move Into the glory of an endless noon Living in the moments of our love, Unaware that he would come so soon. They tell me that they see you in their dreams But pain and loss obscure my sight from thee, Perhaps when sorrow dies the healing streams Of selfless love shall flow again to me. Time has no relativity for those Whose lives have largely lived the ways of love, Known sacrifice of self to draw s

Sun of Our Illumining- To Mother When Wonder walked the world on stainless feet Prayer from our lips fell easily as praise For in Her presence all of life was sweet And blossomed in the beauty of Her gaze. A hope arose as from the desert sands Flowers spring at the first touch of rain, That miracle would issue from Her hands And earth despoiled renaissance find again. The skies have lost some blue, the trees some green, And in this woe-filled world that once was bright The inner compass vacillates between Poles of eternal day and endless night. Earth mourns for Thee, the dew-filled grasses' tears Anoint my feet i

Advancing Light An ill-defined and dull miasmic cloud Now hangs its dolour as a winding shroud Upon the beauty of the sun-bright soul, Obscuring light, appears a gaping hole. A void of deepest night before me yawns. Where now the beauty of those early dawns Of youth in love, to live the greatest bliss And happiness transparent as a kiss? Empty are the days now she is gone, Death has come, the dreadful deed is done, Yet on this burning truth I meditate, The bond of love is stronger than our fate. I stand beside the sea as once before To hear a voice across an unknown shore That speaks to me in wave on rushing wave A song melodi

Song of Freedom What can we know of freedom who are bound As if by tungsten threads or chains of fate To habits and desires blindly seen And motived movements miniscule or great. As through a window in a speeding train We watch the scenes of life go streaking by And realize that mid our hopes and dreams A witness-self within sends forth a cry For peace upon the ravaged heart of time. The free are those who have surrendered all The pettiness of man's mechanic ways, Who answered to the spirit's subtle call Awakened from the drowse of ignorance, Attuned to rhythms in a vaster air, Whose lives took the irreversible step And of t

O Mother O Mother raise this body from its sleep, For the night of unremembering is long And I a sacred rendezvous must keep With One who is the author of my song. O Mother lift the veil that shades these eyes, Reveal Thy golden luminosity That my soul may wake and waking swiftly rise To break the karmic shackles binding me. O Mother tear the knowledge from this mind And all its faulty certitude of thought Illusive peace so difficult to find Instil in me and calm so vainly sought, For I have seen the sacred fire blaze And meditated at Thy lotus feet. I bore the diamond brilliance of Thy gaze And in Thy presence know my life co

The Future Race Plastic flowers strewn on lifeless graves, An artificiality of grief And memories enclosed within the tomb, Forgotten as the falling of a leaf When spring arrives in her dress of green And song-filled breasts delight the fragrant air, Returning life and hope-filled days begun, Forgotten now the roots of our despair. For we have lived and died a thousand times, Our bones in ancient cities turned to dust, A few remembered for the gifts they gave Most like outworn instruments to rust Or fade as sunlight piercing through a glass Reduces all to drab or burns to ash The record of our few and paltry deeds And crumbs

If Once - To Dudley and Sharlet Warner 7/8/02 If once our hearts could hold eternal spring Yet bear the beauty of an endless fall, Know summer as the spirit's flowering, In winter's silence meet the tranquil All, If we could winnow truth from falsehood's field, See evil's face evolving into good, To some high source our inner darkness yield, Taste joy and sorrow as an equal food, If we could calm the restless shores of mind And bridge with light the gulfs of ignorance, Approaching Truth the mystic answers find And God in every seeming play of