The Petulant
I think sometimes of skeptics' wit
that it is the charm of a child's fit:
a fit of images raging in the mind
that on the paths of reason falls behind.
I think sometimes that the doubters' doubt
is nothing but an infant-child's pout
as he looks out upon the pleasant toys
that bless the lives of other boys;
and on occasion, with shattered dreams,
that pout becomes a high-pitched scream,
and the boy falls down in kindled wrath,
refusing to walk upon the path.
Land of Love
All river-ridden is the land of love,
like Eden watered by the rivers four;
along the path of every river's course
the olives, growing higher, shelter doves
that coo and flirt, then flicker up above
on wings like poet's light and music force;
they catch the light and paradoxes prove.
And on these rivers grow the trees of dreams:
the pomegranates fertile with their seeds,
the apples sweet and full like ravished need,
the peaches with their honey blessed for cream,
the lemons that like suns all brightly gleam
beside the limes on which the angels feed;
on every bough the fruits of splendor teem.
You know whereof I speak, for you have seen
in vision or in haunting some glimpsed sight
of all that fecund glory, green with grace,
all that sunlit garden of delights,
where peacocks pomp amid the leaves of green
that grow in the light of Love's own face.
Annaya
The cedars grow tall on the Liban hills
with a life beyond the grasp of human will;
the light grows bright around the muddy grave
of a hermit-saint who prayed and hid his face;
the heart is kissed by the burning of the light
of a noble cedar rising up to sun and sky
and, flaming with a fire that sears the night,
it burns but is not burned.
