The Sun, with courtly retinue,
has vanished in the West.
Memory passes in review.
Mind seeks out its rest.

Yet - no repose is gathered now.
Evening shadows lean,
dark as those upon the brow.
Where are we going ?
What does it mean ?

The Lady in the Eastern Room,
weaves a tapestry,
endlessly upon her loom,
with never-finished artistry.

All that clothes this temporal West,
are vague projections on a screen,
inadequate for lasting dress.
Where are we going ?
What does it mean ?

The mind no lasting helmet has.
The soul, no Earthly robe
unaltered by the years that pass,
as fingering losses probe.

Always we hear the clicking loom -
mystic weaving of that Queen,
the Lady in the Eastern Room.
Where are we going?
What does it mean?

Words. Words -
that never achieve an answer.
Shrill precepts.
Waves that never attain a shore.

Soul is constantly pounded.
Pinned down by debris of mis-interpretation.
Driftwood of old passages.

An archaic Moon,
sheds silver on it all.
Sun does not withold its Light.
Vague confiscations of Time -
reduce.

Spindrift spray rises.
There are companions of many sort,
like myself,
their habitat - this Sea.

Finally -
the Gull flies.

That round clock, reaping fields of passing years.
cannot reap the stores within the heart.
Life's ruddy fruit and golden grain endures;
the subtle kind,sweetened by Love's art.
Grinding pressure of care,and weight of Time,
press down upon the precious secret store.
Even so, one makes exquisite wine.
Chaff of harvest passes, while the core,
kernel of worth,the time-transcending seed,
remains - a sifted, quintessential wealth,
Harvest rich with the essence that we need.
Therein lies the Soul's transforming health.
Much we may gather, but little we retain -
fragile tincture of enduring gain.

It rains all night. Ah - but who would know,
how many rains like this ? They come and go,
as we too come and go, also embarked
on a spiral of cycles, light and dark.
It is the flow itself that bears us on -
on and onward - ever on and on.
Yet - who in bed, and restless perhaps with pain,
inner or outer kind, interprets the rain
as the dolorous descending of his soul,
steadily falling in a downward flow ?
Or - as crowds of sad and unsaved souls,descending,
in one dark, haunted night, unending ?
It rains all night. The fields and gardens drink.
We - perplexed voyagers, lie in bed - and think.

In its corner, the lamp is dead and cold,
the life-giving arteries have failed.
The T V set has sucumbed to stroke.
The portable radio wails.

We sit in that oldest cave, The Night,
while the elements rage about us.
Candle and lantern are our light.
Time goes on without us.

Our lantern casts an orange glow.
Corners lurk, dark and deep.
Exaggerated shadows flow.
We cannnot sleep.

Thunder quakes over the hills.
Lightning shocks the sight.
Winds throws rain against the sills,
with elemental might.

Centuries of science, swiftly returned
to a primitive world, by the wind !
We watch the sputtering lantern burn.
Fire is our old friend.

An old,old friend from the early caves,
worshipped by ancient man.
Raw fire, that both kills and saves,
consoles again.

Ages and ages have passed away.
Mankind and the elements remain
uneasy room-mates to this day,
mingling tonight in the rain.

The desert wind is restless -
wild as a Gypsy King,
whose campfire is his burning breast.
The Moon, his bangled Queen.

She rises in luminous languor,
and spreads her cards on the hills.
Desert denizens gather.
a sad coyote wails.

Cottonwood whines like a fiddle.
The desert wind grows cool.
The Queen, as if solving a riddle,
points to a card: The Fool.

Sea waves crash against the rocking pier-
sieze the feet, baptising them with chill.
Anguished fury of the storm adheres
to its oath of desolation, reducing will
to shattered, scattered fragments, hauled away,
by wind, from cohesive sequence; specific form.
Elements have conspired to grind the day !
Is this the ruthless passion of the storm:
to flatten citadels of technology ?
Strip the structures of greedy willfulness ?
Tear down the manmade spire, erect a Tree,
ancient and stolid monarch of wilderness ?
And bring Earth's children, questioning and cold,
naked with common need, to a chastened fold ?

Those leaden feet that echo
down corridors of years,
are doubts I'd like to silence,
and the blind-self's fears.

They trail me like a shadow,
accuse me when I fail,
and leave a print like teardrops,
along the Cycle's trail.

I would try to outrun them -
forget that hidden part,
but then I hear behind me
brave whistling in the dark.

They will come back - the years once blessed with peace,
when the tiller of the field was crowned with sun -
distant bells tolled rest when day was done -
the flock lolled in verdant pasture, and the beast
foraged in woodland, bland and mild.
They will return - the sunlit rooms of ages,
when young ones learned the wisdom of wise sages,
and the parent played in the meadow with the child.
Somewhere they wait, and wonder, and grow wiser:
the years that were blessed by the thoughtful Family of Man.
When this tormented time is blown like sand,
before a future wind, and peace arises -
again from the ashes - the legendary Bird
will soar again - and the gentle Dove be heard.

Nature's exuberance resurrects the fields !
Scarlet and golden coinage scatters wide,
as if old miser Winter, converted, spills
all his hoarded wealth in one swift tide.
There is only strata of light to separate
sky from fields, and fields from gleaming hills.
Feathered rainbows arc and soar, ornate
in flourish and flash of vivid air-quadrilles.
All is music and color, flowing design,
aural scent from meadows exploding bloom.
All that the senses can endure, combine,
as perfumed and silken May sweeps into June.
Breathless before effulgent Nature's throne,
we return refeshed, quickened to the bone !

Video flashes on the walls
in surrealist rebound.
Rock-beat pistons down the halls,
in locomotive sound.

Psychedelic color swims,
in tides, from room to room -
the pounding, sounding flashing den,
a psychedelic womb.

All the senses escalate !
Incense wreathes the stars.
Awash in ancient tidal spate,
the sleeping giant stirs.

Rocking free, from side to side,
in liberated rising,
Atlas lifts his load, astride
the Cosmos' vast horizon.

We searched through leaves and fallen summer fruit.
An indeterminant quest. Old Winter's flute
scattered the drying leaves in chill, blue wind.
We paused a moment, watching the dance, and then,
turned at the sound of a trumpet, cold and clear.
Crystal geometries, floating in the air,
drifted tenderly, softly, silently down,
onto the floor of the waiting, wind-sheared ground.

The scene transformed before our searching eyes,
as glittering snow descended with graceful speed,
from out the high, cold arches of the sky,
it covered the fallen fruit - the hidden seed -
until a warmer, softer wind would sing
the quickening, summoning song of Spring.

Ages expound in verse and prose.
Equations of science bloom like the rose.
The learned behold them, under their nose,
descending to superstition.

How many are like Penelope -
weaving, unweaving, a tapestry -
watching for what they do not see,
waiting in repetition ?

Distant dreams, like caravans on the horizon,
always seem to recede, but not approach.
We catch the spicy, incensed wind that floats
across our desert, before their train rides on.
Flash of gold, whisper of camel bells,
scent of spices from the mystic East,
wines and silks - these call us from sleeping peace,
and brush us with shining dreams that time dispels.

Too much scanning hypnotic horizons bleeds
the life away from everyday endeavor.
We must gather our robes about us, for whatever
glistens afar cannot appease our needs.
To gather Life's treasures, known, and yet unknown,
we must embark on caravans of our own.

Gather the Doves and let them coo,
on a silver island of silent sea !
Massive explosions of war blast through
that stately procession: Eternity.
We must hasten to hallow a spot -
carve us a cove from the thunderous sea,
before the Schoolhouse erupts like a blot
of fiery ash on immensity.
Whistle a tune from the gentler days !
Gather the Doves, and let us flee !
Carry the seed through the smouldering maze,
for the best of Humanity !

He smiled and embraced the trickling afternoon.
As it ebbed away, he did not long to hold.
Tapestried hills, resplendant in purple and gold,
he knew would fade into gathering dusk - and soon
lanky, sauntering Night would descend the slope.
How many evenings he had watched the change,
through all the parade of years. Now, nothing strange
greeted the eyes, or caused the mind to grope.
A mellowness shone about him. Ripened years
enfolded him in a cloak. He wore his weather,
styled by himself, and bearable. Whatever
extremes the world knew, with its wars and fears,
out of long struggle, he had come to know
that quiet Wisdom: the art of letting-go.

Do not surrender ! Do not despair !
I see a grandeur in your gaze !
You are not one soul clutching at air,
you are Humanity in a maze !

The kindled light is dim, but it's there ,
flickering through clouds of doubt in the eye.
The oldest Counseler, on the Inner Stair,
knows the Way, and does not lie !

It's the other voices that you must doubt,
who endlessly chant of death and shame.
Ignoble and crude, they stamp and shout.

We search through shadows for the light,
elusive wraith, who will not stay,
but ever beckons in the night.
Hide and seek, as children play.

Heart grows weary in confusion.
Soul grows heavy with despair.
Yet - there glimmers a profusion
of twinkling lights, beyond this care.

It's a long and poignant Journey,
on which we play a varied role,
until, in desperation turning,
we find the Inner Light of Soul.

We lay our burden down and listen,
to the soft Immortal Voice.
There, we find renewal glistens.
We lift our load anew - by choice.

This long labor and deep longing,
is an old, well-trodden Climb.
Angels aid, and friends are thronging
with us, on the Road of Time.

Interlacing light and shadow under a net of trees,
constantly shifted by wind,
alternating highlight and depth,
these weave a tapestry of humanity,
across the face of this child.

Fascinated by bee antics, enthralled with butterflies,
ecstatic over chirping bird-friends,
innocent expectation - essence of untrammeled soul,
fountains exuberance for magic of immediate life.
Something that years in the world muffle.

Will experience, tempered wisdom, and time -
bring us again to a knowing simplicity ?
Renewal of childlike acceptance and marvel ?
Will the cataract of hynotic saturation fall from our eyes ?
Will dullness of inner faculty dissolve ?
Will we too again see the 'Essence' in manifestation ?

Sharon - I listen ! I look ! Sadly - I do not 'See'.
I try to find a thread of youthful memory,
to pierce the veil of bewildered lethargy and blindness.
To see again with eyes like Sharon's !
What a blessing !

A Child could lead us ,
if we would learn to unlearn and relearn.
If we would listen.

Put a candle in the window , Dave,
the kids are coming Home.
Their self-esteem is sagging,
and they're feeling all alone.

The cities have confused them.
The times have blurred their sight.
The artificial neon,
has been their only light.

But you know how it is, Dave,
to aspire, and yet sucumb
to temptation's subtle summons,
and to feel ashamed and numb.

Despite their trailing, tarnished wings,
dust-laden and wind-blown,
at the center, they are children,
and heartache's all they've known.

That's why I'm writing you, Dave.
You've known the battle's fray,
and all these wounded casualties,
you wouldn't turn away.

The line is growing longer,
and many more will come.
Put a candle in the window, Dave,
the kids are coming Home.

September light,
flickers pages of Memory.
Some far height,
sounds thin notes of reverie.

Golden, the fields.
Glazed and still, the meadow.
Harvest yields.
Grapes hang ripe in shadow.

O raucous Summer,
riot of rose and lime !
a softer strummer
plays on the lute of Time !

Birds of morning,
ride on the southern wind.
A distant warning,
whistles around the bend.

Homeward, Wanderers,
move in slow procession.
Time for the ponderers :
musing, and retrospection.

Alice walks two feet ahead,
posture poised, demeanor calm,
and yet, it seems as if she sped,
mindful of some trailing harm.

She's composed, and yet aware
of flowers nodding on the way.
Mystically conscious precisely where
her feet are bound, she cannot stay.

And yet, there seems a lingering
with everything she passes,
as if her thoughts were fingering
creatures, trees, and grasses.

Branches move, as if a breeze
had fondly touched,not pressing,
but gently stroked each separate leaf,
with quiet, tender, blessing.

It's an illusion, that her eyes
see only the road before her.
She emanates a love that's wise,
and Nature's folk adore her.

Observing her silent, flowing message,
I sense we all should learn this art:
consistently mindful of our passage,
yet savoring each part.

I stare from the window,
aware of hovering aura of night.
Full Moon is yet low in the East.
Wind purrs, cool.
All those dimples on the hills create a placid face
in moonlight.

One would not guess -
there wanders the coyote,on something's trail.
The rattler searches stealthily, for the unwary,
the less swift, the timid.
Clouds drift across the moon.

From a distance the strange cry comes -
the sound almost a human wail,
as if lamenting years of dark wandering.
The dimples deepen to pits.
Night bares its fangs.

How thin, the glass partition,
between that world,
and this web of technology and culture called a room-
this tiny island surrounded by creatures circling
through each deadly earnest hour,
weaving that life-and-death struggle
called Survival.

Not so unlike ourselves, after all,
who are constantly involved
in the spinning components of our world -
replenishing, extending, defending,
that fragile castle: Identity.

In the empty moments,
when light has ebbed, and spirit grieves,
the mind, devoid of comment,
retires to the heart ...

perceives -

there, in a quiet endurance,
of quiescent memories,
an ageless, nameless Confluence,
that only the Poet relieves.

The wildflower in the meadow has no need
of people-approval to confirm its worth.
It listens to the message of its seed;
finds a haven on the breast of Earth.

Rooted in whatever soil it comes to,
courting no praise from strangers passing by,
it just becomes, by simply being true,
and lifts its lovely face toward the sky.

A little victory blowing in the field,
the wildflower blooms, and does not care
if others see it, or if, unrevealed,
it offers its beauty only to the air.
Nestled in Nature's silent, sheltering love,
the only praise it needs comes from above.

Scattered like waters,
around a rising diver,
the dream recedes,
in ever-widening rings,
as I emerge.

Floating,
tiny, irridescent bubbles,
prickling into obscurity,
one by one.

Floating fragments,
cannot be gathered into a whole.
Only vague, haunting,
disconnected images emerge with me,
into the morning light.

More puzzle than solution,
a charade of consciousness,
I cannot define in formative thought:

four old,old rings,carved with faces,
and a name -
Rebecca.

Hands roughened,
by work in the fields.
Noble simplicity in the eyes.
Sinews-toughened,
Son of the Hills -
interpreter of skies.

Companion of elements,
Nature's kin.
Wise in Seasonal lore.
Molder of implements,
Student of Wind,
Guard of the Earthly floor.

Mother who stitched warmth for her child.
Wife who shared extremes of time.
Faith that was strong.
Strength that was mild.
Soul that was plain - yet fine.

Rustic Sages, honest and true,
wed to the land of their birth.
Strength of the ages, now but a few,
the vanishing Salt of Earth.

The scope of dreams is wider than the mind.
Woven of substance from a vaster sphere.
They are essence of a rarer kind,
not amply harbored in the waters here.

One may discount the air we cannot see
as having no claim to matter's stony throne,
and thus deny it as reality,
and yet - men perish for air, though strong of bone !

These words are not new. Many have counseled thus,
and I cannot embellish on their theme.
I speak to the young, for whom ado and fuss
with visible, temporal, things the world esteems,
has robbed them of a gentle thoughtfulness,
and cast them adrift on time, without a dream.

In the Under-Kingdom, for his light
the intermittent light of flashing cones,
a lone Apprentice hammers through the night,
building a shrine for tabernacled bones.

With a sound of glinting, silver bells,
tinkle in an April wind somewhere.
All day, the Sea sighs irridescent shells
of loveliness - and does not even care.

A multitude of mockers, and a lie -
(materials to fashion beauty of ?) -
gather and disperse, appear and die.
Nothing would put hand to it, but Love,
who is flame, and only knows the dark
as fragrance knows the rose, or song, the lark.

The Bee, that whirrs so busily,
in the oleander flower,
performs his service naturally,
and does not guess his power.

Summer hovers in the hills,
and strolls among the trees.
The Bee, contented, drinks his fill,
as is the way of bees.

He has not studied history
of oleander kind.
Nor does he name the Mystery
that travels through his mind.

That poison wells in the milky stalk,
is irrelevant to the Bee.
He steadily goes about his work -
and that is Alchemy.

The service he renders has no measure.
But it's no concern of his.
He simply works distilling treasure,
by being what he IS !

In silence, the damned cry out in the night.
It cannot be heard with the ear,
but in troubled winds and unstable light;
a sorrow that has no tear.
A sorrow that gathers into a knot,
constricting the heart and breath,
twisted in chains and bound with a lock -
each day a little death.

Such warmth as there is, is an inner fire,
on the altar of the soul.
It may sear and burn with confined desire,
but cannot thaw the cold.
Their peace is acceptance and steady burn.
Who was it said, "The damned don't cry" -?
Whoever it was has something to learn :
it does not show in the eye -

How many years we weigh and wrangle !
Exalted Intellect, globe and scepter,
zealously labors - produces a tangle.
Truth is untouched, and we have left her.

Through the dark night, the storm in its fury,
battered by winds, and driven by time,
harrassed by an inner debating jury,
we weave our bonds by our own design.

Yet, comes a time, in lone desperation,
something arises, pure and wild,
shatters the web, and in liberation,
views the world and the stars as a child.

Out of arduous labors and cumbersome thought,
rough ore of dense complexity,
extracted in sorrow, by longing wrought,
at last the pure gold : simplicity.

How many Aprils have the ages known ?
Air is clean and soft; the daffodil
lifts up its golden torch; the lily, its cone.
How many souls have wandered through such fields ?
A carpet of color adorns the valley floor.
The young year waxes toward its brightest time.
Bluebirds are avidly at their nesting chores.
Again, we witness another April's prime.

Through slow ages many have paused before us.
Did Caesar once gaze upon such April wonder,
savoring those silent moments that restore us ?
Did he ponder with thoughts more gentle than power's thunder ? ?
Did he weep for the many young bodies that lay
on the Altar of War, beneath such bright display ?

Ronnie said a strange thing for a child -
"Do you think people die of broken hearts ?" I smiled,
and stayed my hand a moment from it's task.
"Why, Ronnie, I don't know. Some say so.
Why do you ask?"

I searched him, but his rowdy, cowboy eyes
were off astride some steed I could not know,
and I was left to draw a weak surmise,
as 'grown-ups' must, when lost worlds come and go -
outside their door.

"Well I think so !" he said.
And then would say no more.

A snowy egret comes slipping through the reeds;
tall reeds swaying, bronze, and brown, and green.
He follows a little broken trail that leads
into the swamp where somber cypress lean.
Sun comes dripping thickly through a crack,
where time forgot to tuck the mosses in,
spattering a little space of gold on black,
glittering brightly in the murky dim.

He wanders there to stand in the oozing light,
watching it flow and run, as it trickles down,
washing the fragile body, still and white,
settling on the head a saintly crown.
Only a soul of innocence and grace,
could bring such beauty to so dark a place.

The haze that covers the valley,
echoes an inner weather.
Hills are cloaked in shadow,
dismal as yesterday's dreams.

Birds are no longer callow.
They burn with a vivid feather;
jet across the meadow,
blurred as a smoking stream.

The valley is ringed with walls,
and floored with desert sand.
A dull wind sighs and stalls.
It cannot wander farther.

The sunny cataract falls,
but does not light this land.
A mist hangs in the halls,
that is not air and water.

Clouds of the underworld, red with strife,
rise like mist around the days.
Groping through shadows, tossed and hurled
against rocks of night, in a private maze.

There ! Through the gathering a torch appears !
Spilling the ruddy light of fire !
A promise. A smattering through the tears,
a fluttering, dim desire.

Yet - it is enough to light the way,
over the River, dark and deep.
Of fragile stuff, our hopes array,
themselves like an army waking from sleep.

The Ferryman calls. The sound is hollow,
echoing over the barrier host -
that ghostly wall. Our faith must follow -
follow his voice to the Shining Coast.

There's an articulate silence,
that pulses in the mind,
like the slow drip of a faucet,
in the stillness of the night -

like the ages slowly drumming,
and the marching of our kind,
across the floor of eons, into Universal Light.

Where stars pulse in the Heavens,
threads of forces bind
the spaces in Cohesion,
and all are on a Flight.

He sketched a picture in the dust,
while we stood idly gazing.
His act seemed trivial to us,
whose thoughts were lightly grazing,
idly drifting through the scene,
rambling on the hills,
April pastures, lush and green,
and wooing daffodils.

Then, our vision found the lines,
in dust beneath our feet.
They had the power to jolt our minds,
though simple, plain, and neat.
It was a Signet written there
of something old and wise.
It rippled through the sleeping air,
and opened up our eyes.

Though sketched in sand,
which wind can sweep,
so quickly, and so well,
it echoed through our memory,
as clearly as a bell.
All the years have not erased
the swift awakening of it.
It was a Pyramid he traced,
and a Star above it.

I seek out the solace of poetry now.
The day has been hurried and long.
Clouds and winds invaded my brow,
and scattered the notes of my song.

I saw on the street a muffled display,
independant of scarves at the throat.
It covered the eyes with automaton glaze,
and hung over heads like a ghost.

Industry's wheels rotated and ground.
Traffic's cacophony flowed.
Earth in its orbit continued its round,
but only the neon glowed.

Then a rim of gold on the hull of a cloud,
splintered in sparkling rays -
scattered its gold on the hurrying crowd,
and startled a stranger's gaze.

Suffusing the city's teeming crowds,
Promise relieved the dark !
A tremulous arrow split the clouds,
with a rainbow's shining arc !

Idle in disorder ? How can this be ?!
The mind in agitation cannot rest,
and yet,the body slumps lethargically,
gathering nerves in little heaps of stress.
There is a weariness too deep to name,
entrenched in marrow, frozen in arteries;
a weariness beyond the body's claim,
that cannot respond however mind may tease.
Such heavy weight as surely must abide
in granite heart of rock and time-etched stone;
congealed atoms which move, and yet are tied;
fire-bonded in gravity, harder than human bone,
while about them swirl great tides of water and wind,
requiring ages to loosen them again.

Adrift in a fragile canoe,
with a sail of sight,
pondering the stream of Life,
from this small night.
Old stars glitter above -
float in this stream,
soft as the fluid passage
of a dream.

Ancestral Blood
surges and pounds,
in this gathering of atoms,
a Universal sound -
older than our concourse
as races, nations, attitudes -
spilling Essential Life,
in flowing beatitudes.

The body flows quietly too,
a little raft on Time,
recording its tenuous passage,
on drifting leaves of rhyme.

Here we sit in disarray,
watching the slow-receding day
gather this shell-pink afternoon
into the pattern on Time's loom.

The pink in us still surges and flows,
tinting our lips and cheeks with rose,
tipping the lax, reclining hands,
like delicate starfish on the sand.

Wrinkled clothing of our unrest,
crumples about us in slack undress.
Across the darkening window, soon,
cascading silver will spill from the moon.

In all this grandeur, only we,
selfishly flaunt our poverty.
Yet - there a Talisman can redeem :
crystal slippers of a dream.

Receding stars have left us here,
beached on a sandy cove of day,
where a loitering morning breeze at play,
quietly murmurs and wanders near.

So too, within we recombine
that fluttering breath:identity,
and move through rooms uncertainly,
hands to the chores, absent of mind.

Circles of sameness groove the day
with routine trivia, while the heart
pumps as it must. That greater part
beats somewhere else, like the mind -