Letter from Mary Helen I have read your letter once again And felt the torment you passed through You shall not suffer it again Having left the body to renew Your spirit and allow it rest. You were so strong, you anchored me And made me feel supremely blessed. Your loving care was like a tree Against whose trunk my soul could lean, Whose branches kept the sun away, Your solicitude so rarely seen, Cradled the night and held the day To comfort me in my distress. Alone I live and working still Though somehow to me the world seems less Beautiful and cannot fill The emptiness of empty years, The loneliness that does not leave

Earth Transformed 11/12/09 Its light secure in the surrounding dark, The chaos of a brave unfinished world In a plague of conflict seeking harmony, Alone among the planets in the whirl. A plan in sacred earth's geometry Designed and modelled by an unerring hand Of whose execution we are part And partners in the evolution's play, We must transcend the present and the past, Reverse the smallness that we have become A body weakening beyond repair, A puppet of the unforgiving years, A mind enclosed in superficial thought A vital force consumed by its desires, Break out from bondage and set free the soul; Imprisoned in its cage forgotten it

One Long Known 10/22/09 Too soon is early joy dissolved Awakened ego-mind prevails And sees he world is very own, The Truth recedes, desire assails And swiftly lost the memory Of heights once known and peaks once scaled. The empiric only can be seen, The spirit's faultless vision failed. But deep within the self resides The One long known in ages past, Friend who solaces all grief Assuring us we will outlast Time's ravages, the stranglehold Of death; reborn in bodies new Advancing consciously the years Towards beauty in eternity, The presence of the realized few Who welcome us with grave delight Our souls now free, absolved from ni

The Wheel Along the West Side Drive the river flows Bordered by the roses of the Spring, The sleet-grey day hung with clouds of steel Obscures the view but dampens not their souls. The speeding traffic like a dragon's tail Glowing red beneath the pewter sky Undeterred goes calmly on its way, Driven by the Wheel that spins our lives. -------------- The scenic West Side Drive in New York City

When Poetry Comes When poetry comes and I in altered state Receive the beauty of a world unknown That lies within and certainly above, Recipient of verses that are sown As seeds are broadcast by the gardener's hand I know not where or when the moment dawns But settled in the quiet of a room, Driving on the busy roads of time Or wakened from the alpha waves of sleep, All doubt dispelled, nothing I assume But wait upon the Word to move the hand And see as dots on an illumined page The lines take shape and of a sudden feel The rhythms of the dance within my soul.

In the Paddy Fields 10/31/09   I saw sorrow clinging to an aged face, The spirit captive in an earthly frame In the heat, humidity and monsoon rain; The poor like burdened beasts beneath the blow At labour in the sodden paddy fields, Their life-song spent and even more, the pain Of souls that never felt the hand of grace Uplift misfortune, break the grip of fate, Return to harmony discordant life, The soul to beauty and the heart to bliss.

God^s Design II.htm God's Design II 3/21/09 To lift the sorrow of the world he came, Transmute to joy our suffering and pain, Fulfilled his mission quietly he left Preparing his return and luminous reign. Now slowly we discard the old ideas And remnants of the past to which we cling, Each stumble and each fall upon the path Prepare us for the soul-awakening That we, immortal, learning still to be, Abandon outworn thoughts of 'yours and mine' Become a river rushing to His sea And find in conscious matter God's design.

Turning From the Light   He waits for a weakness then attacks; Even the smallest opening is enough A moment of forgetfulness or worse, The conscious turning away from the Light. In anger or under the heavy cross of grief The ego self in pity or in praise, It may even be the return of old desires Thought to be long dead but only suppressed Cravings of the body or the mind, Or worse, the turning away from the Light, To dwell in darkness of our nether selves, Content to live alone with nagging thoughts Of one's unworthiness to walk the path, Accepting that the climb is far too steep And fall back into psychic somnolence Pitying self

Vision in the Heart How strange this city of a thousand moods, Vibrant, throbbing with a hymn o f life, Sustaining energy its base and strength And yet the only flowers to be seen Peep out from store fronts on the crowded streets, Unless one counts the beauty in their eyes That blossoms beneath these masks of humanness, To those that have the vision in the heart.

She Grew in Beauty She grew in beauty as the years Caressed her auburn hair with grey. In silence she the quiet one Treasured beauty as the way Her soul would travel and her eyes of blue Held steadfastly an inner glow When cancer came so suddenly, Quietly the lethal foe To seal her fate on earth once more. We grew closer than the eye can see, Our life an offering and prayer, Our consecrated hearts to be Given in joy and no despair A foothold gained while we were wed But peace instilled above our fears, No sorrow, no uneasy dread, United we faced the pain-filled years.