Say what you will-vow to the almighty
Your faithfulness.  Will you keep to the
Narrow path when the whirlwind spins
You into the air-when the roiling seas
Turn you about like the merest flotsam
To be caste upon the strand fighting to
Hold the shore against swiftly retreating
Sands.  Pray do not say what you will
Do when passion comes upon you.  Did
David not know when he took his servant's
Wife and sent him away to die so he could
Have her.  Indeed it is a greater lesson than
Morality that is being told here.  It is belief
That you will always act righteously; that
Nothing can over rule your good intentions-
Make you fall into the stinking gutter where
The unworthy lie in their deserved place.
Greater indeed than the morality of plaster
Saints indeed is the lesson that there is  none
Good.  No not one.  Not one who may not
Be wracked by passion and so became
Anathema to all.  Indeed I am such a one
And wait still upon the lord for my salvation.

As if there were folds in a seam
A curtain drawn out to its fullest
Extent so does life present itself
That afterwards there are no
Corroboration or explanations
For what one clearly remembers
Clearly of things so unlikely as
To be impossible.  Yet they have
Happened; and I believe not to
Me alone.  Perhaps you too are
Mumm because it seems so un-
Seemly to speak about a silence.
That you plainly heard calling

Despite all good intentions to die
A shameful ignominious death;
Abandoned by your good friends.
Mocked and jeered at by the crowd,
Your supplications  to the Father met
With silence then without hope go
To your death of pain unimaginable
Then to wake up realizing that it was
All a very long and terrible dream that
You could even not be sure of anything
Of who or where where you are but
Only know that now you are alive
Now alive and will ever be so.  But
I may be asked what of old age? I  
Answer it is the same story and it
Will end the same way we must be
Born again perchance to dream of  
All of Love's gifts  again just as you
Remembered them so good and true.
How good shall it be then my friends?

Her smile constant and genuine
As the sun.  Declared delight in
Being here just in being here.  
To be seen for this moment by
This most appreciative audience
Who seeing how lovely she is
Look happily on their child in
Fascination that such joyfulness
Should exist so unaware and so
Unaffected by the weary, sordid
World for our sake to be here.

One must be on the outside to
See the whole.  Seeing there
The beauty that is compassion
That is love.  Who is this viewer
Sublime?  Die go to Him.  See
Then benevolently even your
Still small self that is struggling
To be right with the unknown.
Beauty truth they oft seem other.
One is all worthiness but if it not
Embodied in being be it is less
Than vagary.  But to be is to be
Is to be within but how to feel
The right is to know the truth
From the outside that it is good
That I am true and beautiful
That is the love in the eye of the
Beholder.  It is eye of heaven
That sees but to know you are
Loved is to see and be seen.  
How then can the poet be so
Blind?  I know not my tears.
Look down upon me Jesus
Let me feel your love again.
Know that you see me that
Truth is beauty is love and
That is all there is to know.
The eye of God is upon us

If I could impart to you
The beauty of the glowing
Grass You would not ask
Me the meaning of the
Universe nor need to.


For Stanley

The instant you know God
You will realize that all-
Every one else even the
Creatures know as if they
Were only waiting for you.
The last shall be first and
The first shall be last.  The
Shepherd is behind the
Sheep.  Consider this: to
Be in the kingdom is to
Be with all that you love
Even all that you have
Been charged to love.
The kingdom will always
Be completed with you
In our sleep we dream
Of coming home, to
Wake here where we
Have lost no sheep.
I have known this place
But still I ask why does
The eternal moment not
Last but ecstasy seems to
Be born dying, now almost
Forgot like the night of the
Shooting stars in Canaan
We knew not that dying
We were being born again.



For Barbara