Afterstorm
The stars are breaking
through storm and cloud;
the light is dropping
like lightest rainfall.
The heavens are grumbling,
they hail the ear;
my heart is free,
my hope is rising.
Fragment
Fighting faith,
fate-fearless,
finds favor;
feckless faith,
fainthearted,
falls.
Ayesha in the Fire
A life beyond life no life can now bear,
nor fair beyond fair and yet still more fair,
for fire and light beyond all desire
will quicken the heart to nothing but fire.
Not gods are we, nor burning with grace,
but apes of the gods, of mortal race,
and though we ascend, as we think, to high throne,
yet still in the darkness we all end alone.
Though shade be deferred by an imminent light,
yet stunted are those who flee from the night,
though long eons stretch, we snap and we die,
and dimness will fall on the brightest of eye,
as darkness will drag us to ash and to dust;
in this fate alone can we mortal men trust.
In ash you will end, leave nothing but name,
life quickened and slain by one glorious flame.
Providence
I saw the plan of providence
in but a swift and glancing glimpse.
Without an end it hung with grace,
endless time through endless space
it hung; threads fine like fairy-wire
held galaxies and worlds entire
like little droplets, shining dew --
my mind could hardly grasp the view.
Into a drop I, trembling, fell,
a fall more years than I can tell;
it yet was there, and finer still
its threads than thought of heart or will,
and on each strand bright droplets stood,
single atoms of the good.
I saw one whisper of one wind;
I saw the glimmer of a friend
when friends first meet, the subtle shift,
the instant's instant of heart's lift;
I saw one photon of the dawn
kiss blade of grass upon the lawn.
A million million things I saw,
but further still I fell in awe,
and past the quarks in interlink,
the bits of grace we barely think,
I fell, down to where reason's point
is worlds too coarse to cut the joint,
such subtle goods their brightest glints
are only known through hints of hints,
and still I saw, like frost arrayed
in finest line, God's plan displayed.
