only Love and kindness
can justify the existence
of this cruel Universe

Living in the modern age,
death for virtue is the wage.
So it seems in darker hours.
Evil wins, kindness cowers.

Ruled by violence and vice
We all stand upon thin ice.
Are we brave or are we mice,
here upon such thin, thin ice?

Dare we linger, dare we skate?
Dare we laugh or celebrate,
knowing we may strain the ice?
Preserve the ice at any price?

paddles at rest
the trout rise
into stillness

Evil is a faceless stranger,
living in a distant neighborhood.
Evil has a wholesome, hometown face,
with merry eyes and an open smile.
Evil walks among us, wearing a mask
which looks like all our faces

Book of Counted Sorrows ~ 1981

lost at sea, adrift
you and me
no boundaries, no rules
just the ocean herself
a beautiful blue desert
full of magic and wonder
nothing as far as the eye can see
just you and me

to see the light
is to see the shadow
of your former self

to see the darkness
is to see all the way
to the edge of time..

Is there some meaning to this life?
What purpose lies behind the strife?
Whence do we come, where are we bound?
These cold questions echo and resound
through each day, each lonely night.
We long to find the splendid light
that will cast a revelatory beam
upon the meaning of the human dream.