1- Windchimes
2- Autumn Wind
3- Rivers
4- Transition
5- Respite
6- Moody Day
7- Eternal Child
8- Old Man's Thoughts
9- Compensation
10-Darkest Hour
11-Illusion
12-Paper Lanterns
13-Ganymede's Dedication
14-Asceticism
15-Riddle
16-Before The Storm
17-The Unbeliever
18-Thoughts On Art
19-Where ?
20-Bluebird's Return
21-Days
22-Love Note From Long Ago
23-Departure
24-Couturier
25-Idols Of The Mind
26-Whimsy
27-The Indefinable
28-The Desert
29-Creative Frustration
30-Modern Ritual

(cont. page 3)

31-Wicker Chair
32-Brief Episode
33-Lost Art
34-Cool Cat
35-In Praise Of Gentle Light
36-Hiatus
37-Grasshopper
38-By The Pool
39-Crankenstein's Lament 40-September Afternoon
41-To My Friends
43-Cycle 44-Thoughts Of A Seed
45-Winter Chant
46-Chip Away !
47-Flying Fishes
48-Shadows
49-The Haunting
50-A Curious Color
51-Old Poet's Dream
52-Rescue
53-Interior Underworld
54-Refining Fire
55-Timeless Communion
56-Hope Of Forgiveness
57-Approach
58-Unicorn
59-Winter Rose
60-Nameless

Breathless with heat of summer,
air is water-soaked.
Thunderheads slowly gather.
Hillsides seem to smoke.

A faint breeze ruffles the cottonwood.
Cactus endures it all.
Air flows through the window,
like a vaporous waterfall.

Softly, the windchimes tinkle,
cool as ice in a glass.
Something in that small movement,
nudges the lethargy past.

Such a soothing, and cheerful, reminder.
from such a tiny thing -
it takes only a ripple of air,
to make a windchime sing.

I write of a time that is passing;
try to record a vanishing world.
Like leaves on a swift Autumn wind,
our times are rapidly hurled,
toward a Tomorrow unknown.
Flying - flying - soon will be gone.
Are they fading to skeletal framework of science ?
Automaton breed ?
We must catch the fleet Essence,
condense it into seed,
before Ages are lost to mind and heart;
all that we know of love and art.

On the horizon, dark shadows reel.
No longer green mountains and spires;
cold towers, chrome and steel,
delicate wires;
nerves of man's 'new order' -
tangles of wind and water.

We must gather the tincture quickly -
the pathos - the glory of Soul -
ancient beauty and wonder - bfore the cold clock tolls-
silence to gentle dignity;
extinction of human empathy.

So much is fading away, my friend.
So many ways and pregnant dreams.
So many hours of peaceful pursuit,
passing like leaves in a stream.

We must each become its 'ark',
bearing the spirit through storm -
faithfully through the dark -
keep the caring warm.
We hold the Promise (who love it), secretly, silently curled,
in the warmth of the heart's remembrance,
seed for Tomorrow's world.

The music of rivers; the glint of their tone,
the smoke-veiled cities - the trees - the hills -
flowing and going, and always alone.
But here and there, the daffodils.

The sighing of rivers; the meadows they leave;
the vallies they search and pass.
They cannot look back. They must not grieve,
though nothing they touch will last.

They may tenderly touch the shore as they go.
They may bask in the sun awhile.
They may wear the fog, and taste the snow,
but silently onward file.

The praying of rivers. The thirst of their quest.
The surge of their liquid fires.
The rock and the mountain that dares to resist,
are carved into woodland spires.

The music of rivers, as they wind on their way,
in the flowing that Time has decreed.
In the heart of the silence, long memories lay,
and a spirit that longs to be free -
so they sing - on their way to the Sea.

In the May dusk, woven thick with flowers,
day and night are shafts of light and shade,
for dreamy hands to set in a parade.
Row on row, of silken pleated hours.
Tenderly, the reddening sun devours.
Dream by dream, illusion is betrayed.
Brilliance clamors hotly to dissuade
the dreamer from the darker dream that lowers.

And so - from tracing scriptures in the sand,
the finger turns accusingly to 'I'.
Listening for itself, the ear turns in.
Ear, and silent tongue, and idle hand,
await, as from some oracle, reply,
then turn to tracing scriptures, once again.

Curtains move in itinerant wind.
Clouds ride a current, high.
Anchored to a chair within,
I watch them passing by.

On a little shore of a little life,
tides of the larger one ebb and flow.
Stars parade in the nightly sky.
I watch them here below.

Pulsing in this listening heart;
pounding in this questioning mind;
is Essence of it all, in part -
a drop of the ocean , here enshrined.
'Small'and 'insignificant'
are never synonoymous, you know.
Value is 'essence' and 'intent'
wherever they may glow.

Every life, though small, or confined,
has a part to play, and answers some need.
What if it's tiny, and does not shine ?
Neither does a Seed !
Yet - nothing offers more proof of Life -
more promise of things to come.
Out of the depths of struggle and strife,
it stretches toward the sun.

And so - in wondering, and in pause,
not idle in my chair,
the Essence of LIfe quietly flows,
and blossoms in the air.

Skies are mottled, blue and grey.
Hills answer, shade and shine.
A mulling wind has lost its way;
the groping echoes whine.

You wouldn't think a heart could be
reflected in the sky,
or that the rain's uncertainty,
might issue from an eye.

No - we are much more quick to say,
the clouds have cloaked our mood,
than that we might have sketched this day,
so half-inclined to brood.

And yet - perhaps this discontent -
these changelings, bright and deep,
moved in us somnambulent,
and rose with us from sleep.

Perhaps that pondering wind we hear;
the clouds that shift and roll;
the light, obscured, then blazing clear,
- are figments of our soul.

I speak words like roses,
awhile they blaze, candleflame,
light that softly sings,
within the hollow dark.
Moth wings,
tremble tenderly around the glow, then burn
their hungry beauty,in the golden urn.

I think thoughts like castles, cold and wide -
grey and winding, where a tide
of vacant footsteps echoing,
causes corridors to sing;
announces torches' flame to view.
Like cherubs lost,
in gentle clouds, my thoughts are tossed,
from uselessness, to hope,
to fairy scope.

I do things like oceans, deep and wild;
without a pattern, weather-styled,
sun-defined, and named,
by sands and shells and fished, aimed -
arrows toward the Sun.
My wonders run,
shoreward - seaward - past the stretch,
where mountains gleam, and cities etch -
tomorrows -
one by one.

I sit in the shade, and dream my old dreams,
as I did when I was a child.
Sunlight weaves lace, as it falls through the trees.
Its fire is filtered and mild.

Geese, flying down from their northern home,
sing an age-old prelude to Fall.
Air is cold and damp in the mornings now,
and a mist hangs over it all.

My skin is wrinkled. My legs are lame.
Years have taken their toll,
but dreams can fly farther,than when I could run,
and time has smoothed out my soul.

So friend, don't come to pity my state,
with hovering motions and sorrow.
I'm preening my wings in the shade today.
I'll fly on them tomorrow.

Slow drops of winter rain,
in delicate tracery,
write unknown script on the pane.
A moody poetry.

Confined to bed by illness,
the body's assertion stilled,
something sings in the stillness,
sweet as a bird on the hill.

Weariness has it's treasures;
silence, surrender, and sleep,
unlike the exuberant pleasures,
when the body is hardy and sleek.

In the waning power of flesh,
there comes an inner dawn.
The outer self struggles less,
and the inner self waxes strong.

As if in the lessening power,
of the body's clamoring role,
life draws in like a flower,
and strengthens the weary soul.

The city is sleeping in silence.
Moon disappears on her journey.
Wind blows through the lilacs.
Earth is endlessly turning.

No creature stirs. No calling
is heard from the distant hills.
The darkest hour is falling.
No light adorns the sills.

Under the rim, the fire lies,
hidden from present view.
We silently wait the sunrise,
in the soft beginning of dew.

Pictures,
on a decorated mirror.
Only creaking,
when I touch the door.

Inquisitive,
I carefully draw nearer.
Creaking answers,
from the phantom floor.

Eyes are calm.
They have no light but questions.
This is a void,
I numbly stare into.

All the bold pretense,
can never lessen
-the nothingness.
It's easy to see through.

Paper lanterns hanging from the trees.
Traffic on the street seems far away.
A garden party atmosphere deceives.
This is only children at their play.

We grown-ups have our sweet deceptions too.
We hang our twilights with a gold-foil moon;
paint our inner walls celestial blue,
and warm heart's winter with a summer tune.

Something wise has made this compensation,
tucked away where facts cannot intrude.
We call it dreaming, or imagination,
and with it weave a glow around the crude.

In troubled times, when life seems cold and dreary;
the far horizon stretches, grey and stark;
the pilgrim soul is faint, and faith is weary:
we hang our paper lanterns in the dark.

The sun will arise tomorrow, despite this night,
and someway heal my sorrow, voice my plight -
my inborn disposition to love,although I cannot win -
my silent song above, my noisy doubt within.

The much old-fashioned fever of this hour,
will fade away, and I will be a tower -
of soothing, calming strength to those who call.
They will not know this wall -

nor my eyes cast on it,nor ears that hear rebound,
nor all the weary avenues of my soul unwound,
nor all the times that I have heard - unkind -
"This is dedication - the cup does not taste the wine."

Into wild auroras, flux of light,
braced to meet the blaze, surrenders climb,
on weary feet, trailing clouds of Time,
along the spiral of a burning white.
Soul shudders up a sacrifice of fright.
Too long bewildered with the moan and grind,
of phantom worlds, shadows entertwined,
to dread the day, when fear is dead in night.

Against the light, her figure darker grows.
The blindness of too great a brilliance falls.
Yet - more fearful nights have stilled her care.
She cannot see the path, yet calmly goes,
a steep ascent, unguarded now by walls,
and all the way, the tethered demons glare.

As fragile as a butterfly,
enduring as the Sea;
borne on winds like thistledown;
determined as a tree.
A spark that flickers soft within,
then blazes in the eye.
From beginnings small and dim,
it soars across the sky..
Minute in fine exactitude;
immense in vast expanse;
some call its course a destiny,
and others name it chance.
A riddle fine, spun on a wheel,
woven on loom of Time;
opalescent composition,
resilient in design;
pervading and pervaded;
unique, but not alone -
intimately mated -
the Knower - and the Known.

No clear reminder came here to decide,
that we could not abide,
the changing temper of the tide.

No Prophet stood,
on wind-blown corner,amid strewn
newspapers of the latest bloom,
to cry out of impending doom.

But something is abroad.
It taints the air.
We do not know precisely where
it drifted from,
and most don't care.

Yet - there's an imminence disturbs the crowd,
as if a presence of portentous cloud.
Something we know within -
but do not speak aloud.

I walk around with a thorn in my heart.
It's the wrongs I can't correct;
the unborn hope, stifled art,
sorrow I can't reject.
I wash my face, comb my hair,
and dress in the current mode.
The smile is in place, but under there,
is a soul that's shivering cold.

All the loved ones who've slipped away,
beyond the curtain, to who-knows-where,
leave an empty place in every day.
I try to have faith that Someone cares,
but my ears are dull, and my vision dim,
I see and hear only this world.
I am not sure. I submerge again,
to the cave where sorrow is curled.
When I walk the street with this sad unrest,
I see others who pass through the day,
with pasted-on smiles, fashionably dressed,
carrying on with the 'play'.

Yet, here and there are certain eyes,
that seem to see more than I.
I'd like to put off this pretense and disguise,
and bravely ask them 'why ?'...
but these old chains of disbelief,
still paralyze my hope,
erode my spirit with hidden grief,
and send me through life to grope.

Identification is the artist's art.
Not detachment, as some think.
Empathy is the soul of art, they know.
Involvement is the ore.

Movement of the mortal world is part.
Essence of the finer world distinct,
as Van Gogh's eyes saw life and soul
issue from the core.

It is true their works begin submerged,
flowing strata of the common world.
Well they know the lashes and the bars.
Equally well, the longing.

The test is if the Essence has emerged,
through them into clarity, and curled
around the work, as pearls do, with no scar -
only great belonging.

Locality is limit, and the heart
rebels at limits. Faithful with its dread,
seizes line, and particle, and part,
in hands of love, until each finite shred
has been transmuted to a new dimension.
Circumference becomes a spiraled ascent.
Boundary promotes its own extension,
by virtue of a pressured discontent.
'Where ?'is a word, and words are little worlds.
Select another world to answer that ?
No - love, at last, has grown too wise for trying.
So only sits, with great grey eyes unfurled,
and says in gentle silence, "We are at
the place where being born, is mostly dying."

The bluebird's feathers are blue again !
He left for a little while.
He must have wandered in some wild wind,
that rumpled his smooth, sleek style.

How bedraggled he reappeared !
Great patches of feathers were gone.
One leg limped, and one wing steered
a little askew - and no song.

Now his eyes are suspicious and keen.
A leaf astir can set him flying.
He comes to feed on lowered wing,
and can scarcely eat for eyeing.

His plumage is turning to sapphire blue,
and his flight improves each day.
Though the feathers are bright,and sleek,and new,
caution is here to stay.

Somehow an innocence has faded.
Oh sweet bluebird, what was the woe,
that sent you back all ragged and jaded ?
I guess we'll never know.

They were splendid and tall,
washed in a thin green light, before -
when a sober face, long, and not beautiful,
looked skyward through all their music.
Music was solemn too - a small, grey bird -
trembling one moment in a coaxing hand,
and then, flying free, gliding plains of heaven.
This is the way of thoughtful children.

Days were swift then, all running together -
like beach towns bordering one interpretative ocean.
They were tender. Both suns and cold winds scraped.
But - they were clean, and they were kind.
Later, they became bright and shining with new color -
with great brilliance, a spring welling up -
glittering with fluid sparkle.

Sometimes they burned with a great heat in the breast,
fountained to the brain in flashes of gold light,
reaching out like a child for the lure of beauty.
Then - sad with endless loss, and cold transparence.
Silence fell, with the hint of muffled music.
It was grey. All grey, and stretching away in distance.

It seemed that at the end there was only night and silence.
And yet - sometimes we remembered stars, and pools,
and warm, slanted sunlight on the Road.
As in a dream, we remembered Mountains,
and bright waters.
Out of the shell- within us - a new day dawned.
We are Companions.

If I could come to you today,
what would I say, but this -
that all you are is graven here,
in filigrees of bliss;
that all you are is like the scent
of Persian spices, blown
across these golden, waiting rooms -
your old, forgotten home.

Tomorrow is a leaf that now
begins to lean in flight.
Yesterday has slippered feet,
that yet enchant the night.
All your ships are harbored here,
and through the firelit halls
of all our courts, the plaintive sound
of waiting music falls.

Yet - in his waiting, every King
concerns himself with State,
and moves through wise appointments,
lest bugles at his gate
should sound the long-awaited note,
so welcome and so sweet,
and his beloved come to find
no Kingdom at her feet.

Children on the stairs,
groping in dim light.
Eyes turned upward,
searching ahead.

Surrounded by
ghostly discourses of the ages.
Striving to hear
the delivering music of Life;
to see the Light
streaming through an open window.

Children,
who have put aside their toys,
to embark on,
the Quest of the Soul

How gloriously
water glistens,
when it's spread
with light !

In moonlight
it's like satin.
In sunlight,
diamond bright !

If only I could still
this inner agitation,
and let Light clothe my soul,
in dress for the occasion.

Stacked up like a pillar,
wobbling on its base,
collected blocks of knowledge,
from a long pragmatic race.

A tremor can send it tumbling.
A storm can scatter like dust,
the tedious gains of science,
in which so many trust.

The flaw is in its nature,
all piece and part, no soul.
No concept of Cohesion.
No Vision of the Whole.

No Spirit that animates factors.
A film obscures the eyes,
and this blind-guide misleads us.
It cannot make us wise.

Do they come to you with labels ?
Do they categorize the wind ?
Do they fix the constellations in a course ?
That fragrant dinner on the table, the cook did not intend
as molecular works of chemists, or much worse !
It's a sumptuous feast ! A festival -
of savoring and wine,
where you rustle in your silk, with charming friends by candlelight.
Oh the weather feels so estival !
The moon so brightly shines !
But did you know refraction has bewildered you tonight ?

Stars are never where we see them.
Their glinting, splintered ray
has traveled many centuries, and may not still shine on.
Do not smile so sure and sly then,
all the scenery in this play,
even now is fast dissolving, like crisps of fading foam.
Love your dream and take it with you.
Fix the future in your heart.
Let the swift, ephemeral tides of living flow.
The very airs that now surround you,
faces, voices, science and art,
like the wildflower in the meadow, change to thistledown, and blow,
on winds of perpetual Autumn - toward tomorrow -
and not slow.

Oh soft, slow glow,
within the body's being,
how is it that you flow
to feeling, hearing, seeing ?

The ivory chess-men bones,
that hold this world together,
resonate with tones,
that tell an inner weather.

But tell me this, oh Tide,
that wanders through these cells,
what is it will abide,
when time has tolled its bell ?

"There is a wind that blows,
eternally uncaptured,
and That - as mystics know,
is ever Life-enraptured.

"When it grows weary here,
it wanders up the Hill,
and that which once seemed dear,
becomes an icy chill."

The desert seems so like an armory,
all swords and spears - hard-bladed.
Heavy artillery of wind
fires volleys of dust at the hills,
pelts the stubborn-standers so mercilessly,
even the thorny cactus bleeds red flowers.

Sentry Joshua Trees resist what would invade -
hold no counsel with itinerant strangers.
Desert severity confounds the unaccustomed.
One must submit quiescent application,
to its guardians -
wait, silent and unjudging, openhearted,
before the mantle of communion descends,
intangible yet prevading,

unstopping the ears, peeling the veil from the eyes,
revealing companion hills encamped around sunset fire,
glittering stars atwinkle in that stern old Prophet's eyes,
as the wailing coyote sings desert longing
through the night.