Opening 11/22/99 Upon the flower's opening I wait More patient now than in the vital years When wrapped in the fullness of self and ego's rule Devoured joy and sorrow with the salt of tears. Slowly the Artist chisels at the crust Sculpting with tender touch or forceful blows The resistant stone restraining the wonder-bird Who flies from birth to birth and slowly grows More radiant and powerful, then free, To new-mould a conscious being robed in grace, Of love, devotion and humility formed The godlike forerunner of the future race.

Hyacinths Once through childhood's innocent eyes I saw The spirit-soul of hyacinths in bloom. Their mystic fragrance slowly drew me in To a magic-microscopic other-room Of sculptured form and blazoned daring hue As if etched in wax to outlast passing time. That eye once opened now such joy perceives Of mystery in the common and sublime.

Prayer for Recalcitrant Mind 9/12/99 Repudiate the specious claims of mind As sovereign leader of this rag-tag band Of disparate entities; descend and bind Our fractioned being, and with thy brightening hand Infuse the unawakened cells with light, And peace upon these warring tribes impress. Attend my prayer in the fast ensuing night Coalesce round soul the body consciousness.

Millennium Now the millennium and to the heights Of Supermind as earth in turmoil cries, Her body poisoned, the rivers of her veins Awash in toxins and overwhelming her skies Polluting clouds of chemicals suspend The rising miracles of moon and sun. A landscape seen through a dense and darkening haze Her contaminated soil from battles won And lost by the hands of fierce and warring men Whose need to kill and maim and rape and rend Asks rest that she rejuvenate again Her blue of lake and sky, her fertile fields, Resume her evolutionary climb With a secret mandate from the hidden supreme Inhabitant who chose through space and time This treasure hun

I am so small I am so small, let me be smaller still Until my consciousness can identify With cellular life and infinitesimal things And know in the atom God's infinity. Let me not dream the aggrandising dreams That blindly leap to a future falsely bright Ere the work's begun, the vessel pure, I have not yet found passage through the night. Give me simplicity and stay the mind From fruitless labours endlessly begun, Cease the circling round of senseless thoughts And focus the inner flame upon the One.

Mantra, The Transforming Word Late have I found in the storm-tossed mind No refuge from the swell of adverse seas, In silence wait the centred flame to find That from this undertow shall bring release. Yet in the hallowed space at the body's core She lit a flame no darkness dare deny And in my heart a long remembered shore And sanctuary where all my faults shall die. Now the titanic task to sail towards light And throw the mental baggage overboard, Hold the grail in the soul's unerring sight Admit the Grace and grasp the lever-word.

Boyhood Carnival Come on in and see a sight You'll never see again my man A giantess as black as night With enormous feet, an African. We entered in the darkened tent And suddenly my heart was filled With pain and all my being rent By this tragedy of life distilled. From her purple swollen lips No murmur broke, no cry of rage, Immured within those massive hips She sat in her flesh as in a cage And all the sorrow of the earth Lay in the darkness of those eyes And all the pain of grotesque birth And life that's d

Casting Out Demons The darker regions with their craftiness Disturbing slumber and the spirit's flight To subtler planes above our earthly stress, Come calling in the darkest heart of night When the Guard sleeps briefly at the gate of the inner door, Admitting unholy influences within, Once guests of desires that formed in times before, The unconscious days of gross indiscipline. The captain of this forward moving ship Must cast o'erboard these pirateers of soul, To the demon forces pressing give the slip And sail in light and splendour towards the goal.

In the Silent Fields of Mind Aug. 25, 1999 Now in the calm and silent fields of mind Joy is harvested by thankful hands And the seasons of our aspirations find The imprint and the seal of Mother's touch; By the still lake reflecting on life's events As the years of our seeking pass slowly in pensive mood, A smile wells up from deep within the soul To blossom on a branch of gratitude. So many hours spent at the treadle of time Weaving the wondrous patterns of the world, While sole within the godhead's paradi

The Avatar - Sri Aurobindo 11.2.99 He blesses with his feet our wayward dust, Wide and welcoming are his silent arms And the depths of his endless grace unfathomable. Speaking at once as Poet Divine and Supreme He calls as with a haunting silver flute Sounding through the ignorance of our night, Its liquid notes alluring the wakening soul To heights still undiscovered, vistas new And grandeurs of a paradisal world Descending to the plane of human sight. He calls our souls to climb, our mortal ears To hear, our hearts to