The Gatherer I gathered hemlocks in the forest's shade Sprouting from the stumps of long-dead trees, I gathered lovers but I left them all For one who called me and my soul did seize. I gathered berries in my carefree days Delighting in the seasons of my youth But a persistent pain dwelt in my heart That only One in all the earth could soothe. I gathered memories and held them close, Remembered as the years tolled on, the dead, And walked between the hills of grief and joy Resisting the road of light that lay ahead. I gathered poems and music from the air Descending from a height to me unknown, My family gone, my bride a spirit-bi

Fragrant in the Fragrant Air Take these words my child and go Unfaltering upon your way, I bless you with these final words Be truthful to your soul each day. Daughter who loved me not, grieve not For I have lived ten thousand hours Now at peace with world and men My body shall bring forth bright flowers That all these years my hands did tend. For me there is no lasting sorrow Who have loved the earth and shared its tears Though I may live to see the morrow Soon the body shall resign Its clay to Matter's thorough care Gentle in the evening's glow, Fragrant in the fragrant air.

Radiant Mother of the Universe In the winter of my adolescent years I wandered in the labyrinth of mind Mid texts and histories and mouldy thought Dead a thousand galaxies ago. The orb of life now grown weak and pale, Hanging in a disappearing sky Held no more solace for my burning soul, My destiny lay far beyond these shores. Immortality like a rock once climbed Was higher to heaven than my spirit could soar, I fell back from youth and arrogance Wishing to be other than I was. When the springtime of my seeking came I fled the sacred country of my birth On ships that foundered in torrential seas Marooned in th

The Soul's Unshakable Certitude.htm The Soul's Unshakable Certitude Carrying my soul on his great wings The Bird of Splendour out of Paradise Takes me where the ethereal choir sings, Where all the sorrow life harbours flies, And pain and grief in the lap of joy find rest. Protected as I travel through the years I am at peace, my arms around his breast, Enraptured as the blessed vision nears. This then the quest, the mantle of the mind Must be thrown off, the vital self subdued, For in this rarefied atmosphere I'll find The eternal soul's unshakable certitude.

To Realize His Dream I touched the earth and felt among her flowers Their silent aspiration for the light, With lifted head towards Creator skies Renounced all darkness and with inner sight Looked on life with wonder and perceived The unity that lies behind discord, A field divine where we enact the play As actors in the drama of the Lord. I saw as in a magic looking glass The sorrow and the pain upon man's face And caught the joy that lingers just behind The appearance of his errant, stumbling pace. I saw the thread that joins disparate lives Felt every stranger as a part of me And every act within this cosmic scene A fragment of

Kandinsky From the known to the unknown Three abstract dimensions resolves Into colours from a vision grown Dissatisfied with common things, When what we thought we knew dissolves, Tears off the uniform and brings To jaded sight a witness view And recreates the world anew.

O Flower-Heart 1/19/06 O flower-heart you have my soul betrayed To beauty with your almond eyes of love. O young and god-desirous dark-skinned maid Who travels through my life a pleasure-trove Of laughter that wakes the sunrise of the morn, Whose tears once spilled in rivers down your cheeks When parting left you desolate, forlorn. O child of timelessness who ever seeks The light it once had held that now seems lost In the turbulence of youth, the drama's flow, Around you the unnatural and forced Far from the golden path on which you go. But I have seen behind the human veil The Truth of you and know it cannot fail.

Gray Heron Gray heron skims The silent lake Lifting my soul to soar with his.

Love Divine and Infinite In the lily-scented grass Among the wayside flowers I Watch the eons slowly pass Look in wonder at the sky, Touch the dewy blades and feel The cooling soil beneath my feet. Under me the earth shall heal And bring forth blossoms wondrous sweet As I prepare my days to yield To beauty and the soul's delight And love that shall possess this field Of life, divine and infinite.

The Promised Fields of Peace Whatever suffering you have had to bear I too have borne, in other lives have known Irreparable loss and untold grief. You with your tears a silver thread have sown Into the fabric every living soul. The child cries out, the stricken parent hears Powerless to save he sees him die And grief like a mortal foe appears And down into the pit our lives are drawn. Joy is gone and all the sunlit days For one who is our life, our breath is gone Our hopes, our faith to darkness death betrays And we succumb to helplessness or worse Unknowing that the inner being grows Though painfully with every fatal stroke. T