Violet
Our hearts were beating in a dusk of silence.
Your smooth dark eyes with a touch of velvet
then stroked my face down to my soul.
The night grew warm as the air grew cold,
and all the colors of this fragile world,
all reds and greens with yellows curled,
were drowned by force, for tides will roll,
were washed away in a rush of gold;
the gold in turn was drained away
to some dark shade of yesterday,
but hearts still beat in the shadowed silence,
the world now steeped in a sea of violet.
River
The force of love to rush, to flood,
is force of love to river be,
not pool or puddle on the plain:
it moves with end and not in vain,
to flow through vale to violet sea,
to find a home in unbound good.
Yet every water must be bound
or, formless, it will forceless move,
creep and seep devoid of rush
like words that waver into hush,
enslaved by furrow and by groove.
That way may never sea be found.
Love in every way may veer,
may fall away, may fail.
As rivers overflow we err --
the border burdens by being there --
and waves will war, fight and flail,
for bounds are death, and death we fear.
A Texas Hymn
The birds woke me at the sunrise hour
when grass was dewy and all was pale
beneath the light of a high white star;
it sang the message that all was well.
And I in the breeze (it trickled down
the blades of grass then quickly wound
around my legs to tickle my feet) --
I knew the light, and it was sweet.
The thirsty drink from flowing spring
and come to life, made quick by source;
as I, when I hear mornings sing
in bird, or wind in winding course,
know, as rolling sun will rise,
a Spirit lives, God's very breath,
who lightens sky and human eyes
and raises souls like mine from death.
Lull upon the Mountain
Like lightning in the storm
where bolts of God rain down
was the turning of the wheels,
the wheels within the wheels,
the Principles of All
in never-ceasing orbit!
The lights were strangely shining
in the fallen mountain-darkness
when Raymond saw the wheels,
the wheels within the wheels,
the glory of the signs
in ever-turning circles!
Peace pours out like oceans,
tumbling in the darkness;
Ophanim move in glory,
the wheels within the wheels,
the holy presence racing
on chariot-wheels of fire!
Osiris
Osiris sleeps and dreams of death,
entombed in ebon halls of stone,
the death-blessed god on sacred throne,
and over gilded sands his breath
still seeks the signs of Isis' will.
And, through Egyptian starlight still
that shines in quiet on the sands,
it courses past the nomad-bands,
a honeyed wind that blows no ill,
and pulses with old hope's demands.
And Isis wanders through the lands
to seek the tombs and sacred throne,
to re-knit flesh to flesh and bone;
she takes the children in her hands
and makes them gods upon the flame.
The dead all have Osiris' name;
one soul goes up, one soul remains,
and on the Nile night-sent rains
will fall to heal the blind and lame
and raise the dead to grace.
The Thieves of Night
The thieves of night have stolen sleep
and I abetted them.
The moon is high, my heart is hot,
the world is evendim,
I wonder if you walk somewhere
beneath the sickle slim
of moon that hunts the wayward stars.
Unslept, I wonder where you are.
With ink of night I write a verse
but understand it not --
my heart unknowing lyrics writes
with subtle pen of thought,
but at the end oblivion
will come and take the lot;
my thoughts are stolen with my sleep --
I seek in vain the paths you keep.
The night itself is stolen, too,
in cunning con and heist:
the bait is laid, the trap is set,
the prey thereby enticed,
the spring is sprung, the teeth close down
with ruthlessness of vise:
the dawn, and yet my mind still strays
to wonder if you'll chance my way.
Sooner or Later
Sooner or later we all have to face,
in the fury and flurry of life's urgent chase,
that no one can win. We all lose this race,
no matter our talent, no matter our pace.
"Sooner or later: yes, but how long?"
The race may not go to the swift or the strong,
but we think some may win. There we are wrong.
The bells in the steeple toll loss in their song.
But maybe the race is not meant to be won.
Time is the swiftest; no feet can outrun
the pace of its step. But look at the sun
and tell me it's pointless, even when done.
Maybe the race is supposed to be lost.
Where is the worth in the work without cost?
And were the storms endless our souls would be tossed,
our hearts be made hard by cold winter frost.
Or maybe the point is to learn how to lose,
how to let go the past, every wound, every bruise,
how to capture true joy, or better yet choose
a life with more colors than victory's hues.
