A little girl in handmade dress.
           Black shoes with  
White knee-high stockings.
                       Shy eyes framed
By and hiding behind
            Long  curly
            Blonde locks,
Waiting with me at
                   The bus stop
Each school morning.

Vulnerable  
             Protected from the harsh
Outside world.
               But nothing can completely
Shut out its
                             Cruel essence.

The outside
                       Can creep in or the
Inside holds dormant
                      Outside influence
Like the eggs of the proverbial tree
                      Lizard laid among  eggs in a
Bird's nest  
             Remaining dormant to eventually
Hatch to feed on the newly born fowl.

Faith soothes the pain
                     By daily standing
On the sidelines
                     Of the pantomime
Of the mundane

As lush dense
Ivy reaches
                         For the sky but must
First slowly crawl
                              Over a cold
Gray wall of stone  
                               Reaching
For dreams and ideals
                          Once clearly seen
On the horizon of the
                      Unobscured  plains
Of childhood.
                    A bit harder at the myopic
Foothills of youth.  
                       Now harder than ever

At the jagged  
                  Snowcapped mountains of
Adulthood.


The curly locked
                             Little girl still lives
After all these years.  
                             Lives on to
                         Balance the weight
Of disappointments
                    Compressed by daily
Reminders of that

Once dormant inside
                       Influence unleashed
In the innermost
                      Sanctity of trust. Lives

In the security
                        Of ideals gradually
Becoming reality.

                       That place in the heart
That no one can touch  
                             That no one can
Invade.

Thank God that home is where the heart is!

                     ¤¤¤

Yesterday
The streets were wider
Now they're narrow
I would go
To the place of mystery
Is gone

Truths revealed
The wide-eyed wonder
Of a child has seen
Into the eyes
Of that distant dream
I had dreamt
The visions
Of a peaceful life

I live
The remnants
Of that child's
Dreams come true

Take my hand
And take my feet
On the paths
That no one
Has tread before
No one knows the pain
That dreamer's feel

I cross these rivers
Deep and wide
I search through
Valleys deep and wide
The other side starts
Where each new day begins

Now today
I will walk the streets
Of yesterday have passed
Into a new beginning
Is in what I see

From the bridges
On the rivers
That flow from yesterday
It's clear
That I am dreaming
My reality

Dreams are real
Make them happen
As a child
Plays the games
That are reality
At any age.

The wishing well has done its part

Now still its water's lie.  

The reasons for the darkest nights

Come as the Dawn draws nigh.

Here I am bleeding again
Taken aback by mortal fear.
                     Staring at faith
                   Staged by hope--
Pouring rain on visceral cage–
               The sound of deep
                       Calling to deep.

Repressed feelings buried by time.
Epitaph reads on the forgotten grave:

"Here lies the child now grown.
  His hopes and dreams
       Dashed to pieces.
  This is where the child died."

I often hear the Mystic Keeper
        Calling from night
And tradition calling from artificial light

As I run through scorched barren
                          Fields of doubt.

Walking barefoot over these coals
    Crouching low
                   To hide my eyes

As I run    
         And as I hide    
  From what has already been revealed--
The tombstone says it all.

When I am out on the water
Lost in the Channel fog
I often see fleeting glimpses of
                White cliffs of hope
Like the white cliffs of Dover
Shining on the edge of Melancholy Sea. 
But they often turn out to be
Withered white
     Seeds of religious platitudes.

      And then there is the ready reflection
Of the looking glass
        That often tricks the beholder.
For in it truth is not seen.
What is seen is graffiti of soul
       Hiding the crumbling
                         Cracks of age–

The threshold where
         Sanity meets its end.

Isolation has become
       A shining steel blade
Cutting deep
    Into the heart of hearts.

Nothing lives after amputation.
Depending on emotional prosthetics--
Phantom pain
                  When nothing is there.

But in the midst of these devastations
I am learning to take--

     Howbeit reluctantly--

The hand of trust and grace.
Allowing
            Hope to build
      A fortress for dreams…
Set boundaries better
       Than no control at all.

Our tidal orphan has but
Reflected light to offer
As does a monolithic orphanage
With cold harsh policies
Being furtively undermined
By beautifully wise children.

And you and me are still
Young enough to really live
We are simply melding
Into another season of emotion
The years are just beginning
To gray what they have claimed
And have been allowed to claim

The wind blows away what it can--
What cannot be tied down

Keep whispering
Your soul into my soul
Keep primal scream tears          
Falling into my primal soul

Keep filling up the empty spaces
Keep creating empty spaces

Tearing down the vacant walls
Building up new walls

Opening locked doors
Locking others in turn

As we forever transform together
Under the aegis of the Immortal

As we grow like the roots
Of the banyan tree

Hanging down with the branches
Helping to provide shelter
As we slowly grow closer
To the sweet earth
In silent anticipation
Finally touching
Slowly penetrating
Gently pushing deeper
Until we are of one purpose

Deeply rooted by the banks
Of the Eternal River
That descended from heaven
And flows through
Human spirit transformed

Life-giving water running slow
And deep the source of your whisper--
True essence in deepest longings

Flowing into my source
Pockets of holy energy overflowing
Slowed down to a trickle at times
Going full circle and
                                     Back and forth
From out of reach channels

That something deep beyond
                     The Starry masses

That something some call love

That something some call God

That something flowing & living
                                  In me & you.

I sat by his bedside the day my father died.
The cancer that had riddled his body and soul now had complete control.

He fought kicking and screaming
the night the men in white came to take him on his final journey
like a great wildebeest struggling to get up on its front legs after being taken down by young lions. The way so many had said he
probably would since he fought his way tooth & nail throughout his life from the very beginning.

That night I sat on a chair at the foot of his bed staring out the huge ceiling to floor window of the medical centre at the many worlds hidden beneath thousands of rows of stationary lights and fluid winding rows of transient lights in-between and thought how the light of this window is just one of many thousands.

At that moment it seemed more like just one tiny speck in the vast star fields worlds above this city of light.

My father had spent most of his life just a short six-mile drive from here under the scattered lights of his hometown.

He turned to me and asked,
“That’s a big city. Where are we?"

Dementia had claimed his mind ten or more years earlier. It
slowly wound its way around his brain like a cocky snake
handler being choked by a boa constrictor unawares.

It seemed like it all caught up to his body. But it was good to see much of the bitterness and bad blood between us dissipated over the past decade.

On that night compassion ruled the day.

I could not say it then but it has been many years, where it seems compassion has forged with objectivity.

In a lucid moment he looked around the hospital room
bewildered as if he were a little boy who just woke up from a bad dream and asked,
“How did this ever happen?"
If only I could have told him.

Sometimes the truth cannot be spoken or heard. All I could do then was sit by his bed and lean in close to his ear and sing softly his favourite hymns. 

By morning his lifeless
dilapidated body lay in the fetal position. His once ravenous mouth now forever frozen looked like a knothole in a twisted cedar tree.

All I can do now is hang my head and think of how weak and frail we humans truly are.

Like compassion forged with objectivity, weakness and frailty forges with fleeting moments of strength. We forge heroes out of these moments to tower above
the pedestals the former is made of to somehow minimize the pain of this often denied truth.