Is Always the Presence for which there is no need of proof
The past and future are speculative.  What can we know of
Unremembered times-surely we shall not find proof there--
Theories theories why should we place in any of these rather
God is or is not known to be by our experience of Him Now.

Have you ever lost someone you loved who was  such a constant
Like water likedair that you took them for granted,  What a loss
It is.  The heart cries out this cannot be but there it is great grief.

Think on this now -this constant now this always now this all now.
We take for granted that we will always wake up to it and so can
Accept the gift of sleep that it will be there for us upon awakening.

Is this now so humble not our experience  and proof of God.
Is not other and it is the beginning and the end all our knowing.

Watch a silver dolphin leap from the sea like the first word
The it plunges back into the water with barely splash The
Alpa and the Omega.  Duration  Time and Space are now in
The One  A pod surfaces leaps and reveals a language  that
Is music and  ist he song  that bridges time and place making
One a diversity that is present - is again dissolved again into ...

NOW The N is silent ..The O is silent ...the W is silent...

They say in the south the past is
Not dead it is not even over-So
Where do you go when you are
Seeking where the ghosts of the
Past still live-Take your Dreams
South.  Say to the conductor do
Not stop till I am in the Land of
Where I left my true love so long
Long ago.  She was little then and
She used to tease me so till I said
You are going to make me love ya
Till   I am dead  till I am dead and
Gone  Going to where all my life
Is past and done on the Old Bard
Line lighting fools their way to dusty
Death Come to life again-Heading out
Way down South  I'm Coming Home to
Zippity do da Zippity aye My Oh My
What a wonderful Day it will be On the
Old Bard  Line When  all my yesterdays
Light my way to where My love and I
Were in bygone days so bright of yore


For Lissy

The coincidence of two worlds
Each an affirmation of the other.

My life has been so  conditioned by
Absence a longed for presence that I
Know no other and so by forfeit this
Unworthy life has shamefully become
My wretched blanket that I cling to in
Like a child standing before the storm
What is dearest is the least,and the last

Tell the truth.  Nothing changes
But you may see it better.
Tell the truth.  Nothing changes
But you may hear it better
Be in silence
Hear the still small voice
That is always speaking to
Your heart.

We ask and the answer is maybe
Yes or No.  We ask because we
Do not know .and the answer is
Maybe...Maybe yes and maybe
No.  Maybe time will tell,  This
I know.  I must  live in the cloud
Make peace with the cloud find
Therein  my daily bread and give
Thanks for it and for every kindly
Thing each day brings; and if my
Cup runneth over to share my joys
With  all others  By this my life is
Blessed more blessed than by any
Other answer.  For of even  sweet
Lies the truth  better. I  live in the
The Great cloud of unknowing. It
Is from that post I sometimes see the
Sun and am sometimes soaked by rain
Sometimes from my summit thunder
And lightening make me tremble but
When it passes sometimes I see the
Most beautiful rainbow that tells me
Not to suffer any more .God is good
And all is right in heaven and on earth
It is but a  passing  thought.  Not a fact
But I know that I will cherish it until
Death do us part Till then I love you  
I love you It is is  a whimsy. I suppose
Forgive me for I do  what  I know not


For my Mother

You are on a short board that does not span the deep canyon
A mad crowd a murdererous horde is close -is chasing you.
You run to the
End of the board .
The pitiless mob are screaming
For your blood- are closing in
You see in the void  before
An angel beckoning you to
Come!  Leap into the empty
Space  You have never believed in
Angels.  Will  you  now?
What do you have to lose?  To gain?
But there  is no timet.to weigh things
For prudent measure You must act
Know  now with your whole heart
You choose!

"The Winter of Despair The Spring of Hope*
Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities"
Answer.

Have you lost the one you love?
Does it seem she is not there and
Will not be where you are waiting
Then you are dreaming  Dreaming
Years So Many years it seems it is
Unreal.  Where was it that you lost
Her before the dream began.  It is
There you will find her waiting still
As she was.  Time has not  taken a
jot from her beauty She still waits
For your love.  Take now your Ship
Of dreams cross over thru the seas-
Pass again into the darkest night of-
Of despair till you reach the farther
Shore that was once your Fatherland
Where Love Lives and never dies. Raise
Up your heart like a flag on the fated ship
Let the winds of time take you back to
Land from which you came away- where
Love is real and Truth  is beauty and as the
Poet said: That is all ye needwonderful to know but
Yet know this too you will arrive home again
In this life.  Have So soon the journey,s over
In the blink of an eye you will know it all
Has been a dream that  your love was gone
And night is as good as day til the morning



Remembering Now
"An Occurrence  at Owl Creek" by
Ambrose Bierce

We were walking in a an enchanted place
A great Cathedral like Notre Dame in its midst a
A Renaissance fair played all about us.  Crafts
People were making beautiful artizan glassware
I wanted show her all the beauty of this world but
She kept disappearing and I feared I would not
Be able to finder her but then she would reappear
Again I would try to get her to take an interest in the
Magnificent creations.  But when she looked they all
Would turne to dross.  Then she would go again I knew
Not where and my heart ached so terrible was it to lose
Her.  Then she returned the final time and I pressed  her
Beneath me and breathlessly said I Love You-  It Was
Said without aforethought from the depths of my soul.
tt was thus  I understood that My Love,is the Lord my
God  was a jealous God who was saying show Me: Your
Love.  Put no treasures before m eand I will be yours -
But lest you misunderstand it was sweet and playful to
                               The End

Like a bellow pulsating anxiety fans
the fires of love for only what is lost
Can tell the full story of what is priceless
While Love itself be  stable it  only when
It is wrenched away- when the whale that
Is in the seas leaps from the them that its
Self  is fully felt as the heart of life itself

Just in case you feel envious of the famous
Remember this when you or I die it will not
Be int he news or on the the telly Why?  you
Know  why because there will be no news at
The end of the world if my love not rise again

There is much that you see that you
Do not yet know that you Love  All
that is old and familiar and is rundown
Now parting.  That old man with the
Cane soon you will not see him any
More.  The cobbled streets the broken
Down shanties, the old tresste over the
River.  Shame shame how much you
Disliked and looked  down on it all:
The streets of your home town now only
Memory -the abandoned houses on the great
Estates that you snuck into they had treasures
Of another time always  now-then if you  See
The passing glory of it all is that it is not lasting
As the little prince said you only truly see when
See with the heart with your heart breaking.


To the  old man in the shabby   store who
who sold me penny on the way home from
school.

In the timeless dark waiting
One awakes and His first wish
To know the kind king who rules
Where he may reside where love
Is Sovereign over all.  He sees it
Not nor yet feels only that it is true
A skeleton of logic, a tautology of
Being that where he is all is good
The seed of imdination that even if
Forget still is.and still lives in the
Light that which only perceives its
Shadow. Have you not heard spoken
The Word: "Forgive them they know
not what they do"  For there is beneath
The very beast the child that was and
Still is.  More than this I say that if the
Great world be evil it is but a sham and
Illusion that perishes before the Truth

Pretentions of knowing are the first signs of a growing
maturity but to be fair it begins innocently enough.

In the evening twilight the  sounds of the
Village are heard from far and wide as echoes
Of an  eternal yesterday fragments of  play at
At the end of a day.  Like sparks before the
Coming dark so clear so faraway speaking to
The Heart of a forever loneliness for what was
Golden-now  has passed; a child's summers day

For my sister Sue Eileen on her birthday with  Love
David

From the green valley I see the lumbering hills
Of darker green are the forests that like a shawt
Are draped  over a beautiful stranger who's face
You cannot  see but  who beckons you to come.
You know you cannot get there because what you
See will not be there.  It is so with so much that is
Desired.  You cannot always come to what can only
Be seen at a distance; you know this but still you go
When you are young and when old long to return to
The valley where the faithful hills still stand guard

Is also the route of conscious-The sense of
Our special specific individuality is  the same.
All have it. i t is our common inheritance.
There is only I and and the  not I.  All the
Living are the great I Am.  We are born on
The path that leads from the self to the Self.
The I am does not die but who die in it are
Reborn in it.  There is only one consciousness
One individual; One Self.  True Love has no fear
For it knows the truth  that the Truth does not die.
We are part and one of the great whole that is life.
Oh Lord make my words sweeter to hear as water
To the thirsty that your power be known and your
Glory be magnified that our voyage be more joyful

A little child's house
Made of windows that
Look out ont upon the
Wondrous garden. So
Small but with a Vision
To everywhere that the
Heart of' life holds dear



With a tip of the Hat
To R.L Stevenson and
His "Child's Garden of
Verses" ; and L M Wolcott
(as I begin reading}" Flower
Fables"

If only the man who led a saintly life could
Enter the Kingdom of  God  What hope is
There for the rest of us.  I speak  now of us
The common man but charity asks more  of
Us  Let who is without sin caste the stone.
But if this is so it matters less the road one has
Taken  than the portal he arrives at.and given
Welcome to pass thru.  All that counts in the
End is the end.  Christ's is the Spiritual nature
That one must take on..  Christ the condemned
The villain  that accepted the world's shame and
Guilt and said : Not my will but thy will bc done
While those that loved him could only stand in
Silence, some with tears in their eyes as  He was
Crucified.  Think not that this is some sectarian
Story i am repeating;  it is a universal Truth.  Not
In its particulars but as an iconic meaning. Every
Man's destination and fate as chosen by our Father.


A Fable:
Once there was a cracked dish and after some rough handling it broke in
Two pieces-One was much larger and an argue,ent ensued.  The Large
Piece  said I am not broken it is you that is broken.  The smaller piece said
No it is you.that is broken my guilt is less as I am smaller.  What is obvious-
The plate was broken and no amount of argument about relative guilt would
Make it whole again.  When the pieces realized this and knew not what to do they realized that they were both about to be discarded despite a long and shared history.  Then with a contrite heart they  called out their sorrow to the householder in who's  and for who's service they had been made.  And sharing in their pain He came unto them and said I will heal your parts and ask for gentle usage for their will remain a crack that all be warned that Love
is fragile.

But there is a catch...Day at at time  a knowing
Grows that the farther you go the farther you are
From your beginnings ,Soon you will not remember
The things you lost- that were closest to your heart.
It Is then death comes to seems as  reasonable .But
You are in  La FlorIda  now where  Ponce De Leon
Sought The Eternal Springs..and did not  Jesus say
Seek and you shall find ;and who am I  to doubt
but now here is the Catch where there  is  no peace
Of death: ,no loved ones to mourn and bury,   No
Familiar soil of family and friends to take you in;
Where there is no end there is no home; and in this
Place you will keen for former things  and soul
Oh splendid eternity you are not  all that  there is.
Cannot be for  you are not where my old home.is .
As the old hymn says:
someday "I'll fly away"The
Angels shall take me home.

As my Dad used to say.  The Truth.  Thee.
So I made you  Lies you cannot be so can
Not long stand.  Who is great is not mortal.
Pretense will fall .  A brutal crash but is yet
A kindness not least to him who made of his
Self a fraud forfeiting his soul  for vanity,  A
Child of God no more that could not long be,

Find perfect patience now
What more is their to seek
To gild the lily or not?  What
Is it worth to praise humble
Virtue-The placid lake is all
That needs be..  Peace is its
Own reward but then all the
Quieted wishes answered.the
Promised Child is born but as
All Knows there is trouble in the
Beginning and so once again
Patience, the sea of calm is the
Answer that can wait forever
But never needs to.  War, pain
Plague and famine will be forgot. 
 For they teach that Patience-
Perfect Patience is all that's ever
Needed and the lesson learned is worth
The pain.  The brides maid is satisfied
With her role needs nothing more
Seeks not the groom for herself
But to such a one Love will come.
Patience is always with us and there
Is in all of us a place for her to come
We need only ask that she be with us
Patience is the happiness equal to  any
Reward  Overcomes any sorrow

Did you know love?  Was it be like the early morning
Clear and bright in early summer say. One day you
Knew life was good and it was so.  At noon it was a
Pouring forth, the cup that over-floweth.  A drought of
Sufficiency of day and then comes the evening with all
It's splendor and the Venus star comes forth and all is
Memory that you must let go of as if it never was.  And
Purple sorrow presages the night and some like me fight
Against the dying of the ligtht but in the  end one  let's go.


Remembering Nepenthe
Must return to the great Lethe .where forgetfulness  reigns.
That you know you have loved all and completely is your
Peace for there is no better  here or hereafter. What  iswill it's
End is but the necessity that it should be born again that a
New child of wonder always give praise unto the Lord.

Many years ago I told my Friend Ed the
Ex librarian a riddle I had heard-A man walks
for fifteen minutes to the East and then fifteen
North plants a flag goes back to his starting place
Changes his direction and travels West fifteen
Minutes then turn North and in few minutes he is
Back at the flag.  Where is he ?  I asked  Ed, a true
Scholar.  He pondered.looked puzzled and said I
Don't Know-Where?  I told him the flag was at the
North pole. He pondered too deep for me and said:
"There must be Another Place!" I knew he meant
Another reality.  The wonder The Wonder that it
Might be so and maybe so much better than this
Veil of tears it seems we know.  Last night  I was
There.  I woke up in my dream it was a somewhat
Desolate place, a tract near a city that once had been
Flat but ****** terrain over grown with  old brush
Dumped and growing.  A breeze was blowing when
First I saw it a she floating in the air-gamboling to
And fro-  I watched amazed and deciphered that I
Was watching an old worn garment carried about
By the wind.  It came to earth and I examined it and
So it was a thin bi of cloth.  I threw it is a pile of brush
Where it disappeared to my immediate regret because
I knew I had seen something quite marvelous and too
Odd to be ignored .  I put a stick into the pile and poked
For the cloth.  It immediately rose up but now it was two
pieces; a lamb that turned colors and frolicked delightfully
At my  very feet.  I turned to my anonymous friend and
Said even if we are only seeing dance of rags.  It surely
Has taken a goodly time for them to become such wind
Nymphs.  And is it not an augury that this is the time that
Childish dreams will soon be realized=maybe Peace is
About to come.  Is even now Immanent.  I think now of
Dickens: It was the best of times; the worst time.... A time
Like all times"- Magic is so interwove  into the ordinary
That one ner does see it until one wakes up in his dreams
A mysterious stranger at his side where another place. is
A place in the heart where the little king and i always reside
It is always about to be.  It is Now and nothing more...

Charlie says it is only a thought if mind
Ed say it is a long long  time, A book.
You are reading and never finish. Charlie
Says but you only live moment to moment.
Still they can be welded  into a chain of memory
Ed says.  And so it goes back and forth-two
Sides of a coin-more perfect yet
the circle of the I Ching with its S line
Down the middle dividing the light from
Dark; and each half contain the merest point
Of the other.  My two friends knew each other
Before I knew them.  Ed introduced me Charlie
In a hot dog place in Berkeley in the early 70s.
It seems my memory is a refutation that it is but
A Thought of mind-I know it has been a long
Long time this memory and so many others but
There is always the times in between-The blessed
Darkness after life's crucifixions when I would
Say it is done; It is finished. Peace and Amen to
All lost loves=family friiedns.  I go to a  Place .  
If God in His goodness wills it perhaps there we
Shall meet again and if not there is this endless...
This changeless thought of mind-this eternity
And always either way ... Still I am on the way..

Little Liss kissed my lips
So chaste and ....
Sweet  It pierced my heart
Where she always lives
Now she is all grown up
But on those lips she be-
Quated a gift-A secret . I
know its been said before:
"The past is not over its not
Even past".  He spoke of I
Think of  a time and place but
It was of a forever Love  and a
Truth that does not die but lives
On in in memories that return in
Dreams that are real as heaven
A place you will always be when
You get there like  " Last Stop:
'Willough... Be!'"...

(Some Place between Westport and Fairfield)


With attribution to Wm Faulkner and  The Twilight Zone by my
fellow Antiocian Rod S,

For Liss

The boy who cried fire too many times
When there was no fire got the reputation
Of a Liar so when he cried :No firre ! No
Fire! there was a terrible hysteria that in
Fact there was a Fire consuming the land
Panic everywhere as the fear spread.
It is really quite simple.  If Pavlov called
Out ; Chow! Chow! and there was never
Food the dogs would soon the Word  food

Believe was a lie and  would stop believing the
Man even when he told the Truth.  What is the
Truth in the liar' s .mouth?  The understanding of
Trtuth Is always  the hallowed breath of reputation.





The Bull in the china shop pleaded he was really
Only an elephant.  They would not listen and
cried curses down as he was forced to leave the
shambles.  Shame Shame They called!  Go!  Go!

But  to the pedestrians and street urchins it was
A
Glorious show and so it was long remembered.
Even revered as a great masquerade of  this life
Wherein all the world is a stage and the play is
The thing.  All that's left to us though it be the
Fall
Of Rome we are glad we were there Now to tell the
Tale  about the way we were in our youth.
Are we not all but poor players who strut and
Fret our hour upon the stage and then are heard
No More....So knave or king take your bow. All
We can  now say   say to you is you made the show
We  who loved the show   must love you too at the
End of time...

With Love to my son and daughter

What could account for the problem
Of making life so complex that an
Average man   is not able with a normal
Amount of diligence to  successfully be
Able to navigate the routine challenges
Of life.  Is it not perversity; ignorance
Some combination of the above- to drive
A man mad with needless complexities
That serve no purpose except the vain
Glory of the riddler who would not
Have us discover  that he is  naked.
Beneath his imagined cleverness -is a
Fool  who will not enter the House of
Lord till he will be led by a little child.

There is no good reason that things should be so bad.  
Bad  andSo I let the starry eyed child be my guide.
the wise and learned men who write great treatises no one
Can understand  should confess as much and not mislead.but
Rather  than admit that  they know not.  They are proud that they
Can deceive though will carry their erudite  heavy tombs to the
Grave They say wemust listen to them  so they can make it better.
They scrawl there letters in the sand of an eternal shore that erases
All.  



Again there is no good reason things must be so bad .No child
Should be blamed for Adams Sin it is beaten into them by threat
From all the worthy shamans Let them all go go pound  sand but
They will not go easy.  Speak!   Will we not crucify?  Its been
Done before you know?   No I do not know and neither do you.
But if its so its wrong.  Where were you when God made ius all
Heaven and earth If you were any where near Him you were
A starry eyed child who knew  He would call you back and
Never let you roam too far This was a knowledge worth living
For.  There is no good reason to  pretend we know why so much
Evil is  In fact a little child leadeth me even now out of  the dark
Dungeon of despair that i wrongly called Adam's other place.
There really is only One place  it is here and it belongs to God
The child knows it is loved; know where love is there is no  evil
Good is the truth The Truth is good and that is all you need to
Know

When II am my Father's child He hears:
That from Loving Him I am innocent. It
Is not my Judgement that he seeks nor i
From Him.   Love is our strong bond and
For Love's sake I  ever plea compassion so
My prayer is granted that Love may rule
On earth as in heaven for all who believe
i am my Father's child so i shall always be
May my children know the Golden rule.
Keep it always and by it lift their hearts
For neither here nor in the the Kingdom to
Come will my accuser be  my.  Child.  Yet
By grace they shall return to love as I to my
Father  who hears  prayers and lets  his child
Rule  that by  love His will be done.

Hear the cascading judgement of all that is
False like thunder rumble to their end. Are
They not a tale full of sound and fury....

For they are my children who return to me
Must I say you are not my people first...
Then you are not my people...

For my Father who is in heaven
For Our Father who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name...

They say  love cannot die but that is not
Strictly true it can be struck dumb and so
Sleep who can say how long like an insect
Underground till the season of its rebirth.
When from buried chrysalis it is transformed
Into a butterfly with wings that fly from earth
To heaven  and beck again to land unexpected
On a dormant human heart that is still dear to
True a love that never dies.  Therefore I say to
Myself and to you fear not that sleep nor how
Long it may be.  For it will  pass in the twinkling
Of an eye.  Fight fight against the dying of the light
If you must but then rest fearlessly till thou wake
Again with me till that time  earth and heaven do
Com and all is made new again.  Sleep now  who
knows what dreams may come yet trust sweet chance
Is better than this stubborn wrangling that calls itself
Life but is not love  True Love does not lie but lies in
Wait till the end of never if need be.that is the Lord"s
Trump  card to all who would decry love"s victory.
Good bye my children you  who are mine no longer

I entered athe land of Chance
(or so it seemed) there to seek
The beauty of the love that i
Everywhere and there  Ifound
Old friends and new So many
Treasures everywhere but all
Fragmented ;friends I'd made
That I could not keep.   So to a
Greater loneliness I woke again
To my defeat (or so it seemed)
By love rejected and so far away
Without chance or,friend to play
As if in a pool I looked down at
Myself and decried the abominable
Wretch I had become only looking
Down on my sorrow ne'r realizing
It  was in the sky above me and the
Forlorn one I rejected was the Christ
Above me that  I rejected.  Disgraced
Beaten and defeated. Yes I am sorry
I admit it for it is God's Truth Too


*I was ignorant therefore I spoke as I did...
From the end of the Book of Job when the
Lord asks him where he was when God created
The Leviathan?  Children forgive me that I spoke
As I did.  I am sorry and ask you to forgive me
Even as the Lord did Job for Love"s sake...

Repentance is bitter fruit just
Without charity yourself you.
Remember but would forget
Nor are free of yet -lest lost be
The lessons meant to secure and
The better part be lost but it is
that itself is  the impediment for it
Is not grace if it be earned nor
Can it be . But lesson  is buried in
the soul incorporated in the dark soil
An unconscious conscience  now is  no
Burden but sets us free to fully be
To know the joy  eternal we must
Forget the unforgivable as the chaff
Is burned  Let it be love that endures
Though it seems much too long it is
A moment till this suffering be no
More School is out.  It is early Forever
Summer now and we are  let go by god
As nature takes its course on our behalf

When the whispering pipes are heard
oft we  remember as if in a dream the
deeds of derring do otherwise known as
treason, and treachery punishable still by
death and shame were they known and-
done now.  Was it courage, youthful folly
or the grants of intoxicants that gave us a
victory that is but survival when we should
have perished with our now stateless friends
Have we been forgiven?  Have we  repented
who can still remember the liberties we took
the passion we felt still feel in the south of our
souls where history is not over; is not even past
Oh Father forgive us.  Grant us peace that we
May remember and still laugh without shame
to be among the fallen for love's sake the times
This time of our togetherness and remembrance

Love is the we kisseed link
A bondless memory that cannot
Be remembered but lets us be
That let's us live till time
May let us  kisss again
That love not be forgotten

Seems like only yesterday
In his dad's apartment near
the old hat factory in Norwalk
Where his dad  had worked with

My grand mother  on opposite
Sides of the Union.  There he
Was Playing belting out Long
Tally Sally with more spirit than
Little Richard surrounded by his
Buddies all a little drunk as He
Clanged on the guitar like it was
The end of the world.  He died not
long after-complication of too much
Drinking and diabetes not yet thirty-
A vibrant life- my best friend it was
Another evening and I wasn't there
I was told it was another celebration
That he started laughing and could not
Stop until he passed out and went over to
The other side.  I went to the funerlal at
St Thomes's  His wife Sharoln was very
Beautiful a teenager in black veil. They
Had separated but not before they had a
Little boy -Tommy.  I cried I never knew
He was leaving though he had been telling
The Long long goodbye of our youth that I
Thought would not end even as it flamed out


For Little Richard and Little Tommy
s

A look in the mirror.  Yesterday.
A short dash from somewhere to
No where.  Who can say this not
The essence?  When its over.....

Years ago when I was sa boy I used to
Visit an old hosrse on a farm near my
home that is no more.  Whenever I came
He would amble up to the fence and greet
Me.  I never brought him anything to eat
Boys are careless and do not think ahead-
Still I wish I had.  He always came to greet
Me .  Either he forgot or forgave me.  Does
It make any difference He knew I remembered
Him.and tha't ts how I feed him now by recalling
Him , the farm  and my child soul of long ago.

Do I love the sun?
I scarcely know
Do I love the rain?
I scarcely know
The moon and stars the
Quiet night.  I scarcely
Know.  My burden is lite
The longest wait the greatest
Weight is now.  I  now
Scarcely know  that it.  It  is
So
Quickly passes  a thing of light
Now    Do  I Love
You my Son I scarcely know-
The truth I know is light and
Shadow and the wait is  and is
not.  So lite a burden Love?

When the Truth is for sale
It is very chere and well guarded
So what choice does the honest man
Have but to steal it back.  Therefore
It is well said that none is righteous

Goeth my friend to that Place
Where there is no sorrow-Go
Yonder to Nepenthe for it is a
Real place where in the midst
A Sea of trouble you are within
A Love  in that bubble of  Wonder
There is forgetfulness that teaches a
Truth beyond knowing   in forgiving
Beyond forggiving in forgetting: God Is

How long oh Lord will it be till I
Know Sweet Nepenthe again. Know
Deligtht of your Love that I remember
That cannot be remembered.


For Elizabth & Brendan

Wonder of wonders the first man arrives
The great explorer the first man to enter
The New Land Paradise only to discover
He is the last one there; that all the people
He thought were following are there already
Friends family strangers passed on the street
Are already there before he arrived.  How
Can this be?  That Christ rose to the Father
The unblemished son and there does meet all
Those he was sent to save and they have the
Gall to say we told you so.I guess heaven is not
Meant to be an empty place without friends or
Kin nor alien streets of gold but rather full of
Old familiar places lest old acquaintance  be
Forgot  All were forgiven so it seems before He
Rose.  The last shall be first and the first last.

Before Mark Twain knew he would
Always love Becky Thatcher the boy
Sam Clemens  knew her as a just a
girl in the neighborhood  Saw her as
A fellow child jumping rope giggling
To her friends Not his  It was the same
With me when I was small- there was
A girl Pauline with pigtails and very
Shy.  We never spoke but I just knew
She very nice and proper too much so
To notice  a mutt like me Such like was
The girlhood of my wife All she gave
Me was a sketch of a girl I never met I
did not know I loved her back then but
I know it now.  I know it now.

My Dad he not  long before  he died
Made her a bright tangerine colored kind
Of hassock that when you zipped it open
Four tangerine cushions were stuffed in it
It was carefully crafted something I
Could never make and She loved it
.  It was leatherette and a a little gaudy
where has gone to I  do not know
but I think .ll find it with  her in
Heaven where  Father  took her When I
Was faraway I loved her then and I love her
Now She  was the  girl for me; now  she.s gone
  l loved when I saw her skipping rope
n my mind
So long ago
I loved her then
I love her still


For Barbara

Would you move away
Saying I have sojourned
Heere too long.  This swamp
This desert  Yet there is this
It takes to get away whats is
Sticking you is that you do not
Really want to leave with what
You've left undone  Something?
What?  You have hidden from
Your eyes and heart that it is a
Place you Love Confess to your
Selt that it is true and you will
Get your pass  Say Adieu adieu
I go but something of my heart
I leave with you in this place


Who was it that said Bless Me Bless me
And I will let you go When Jacob with
the angel wrestled here on earth......


For Royal Manor and Memories
Of My Mother here

To know what love"s worth
Letl ove it go and though
It ibe but a  moment it will
Seem you travel thru time
Go from youth to old age
In slow time thru a land
Of grief and tears seeing
What love is not while in
Sharp relief knowing what
Love is.  Love is Forever
This moment shall pass in
The twinkling of an eye
What then shall be? All that
We thought was lost forever
God will restore to us again

Jack said Game Over
I am. and  Your Dead
Lonely and all Alone
He said what is the use
This games a ruse that
leaves me without a friend
He looked around ghosts
All about.  So one by one
He bid them rise All the ones
He had known as friends now
Gone  Again with him to live
Another day; He said never
Again shall I play a game where
To win means saying no to love

Once there was a garden It is
Still there very near here We
Can smell its fragrance sometimes
Of honey suckle  mixed with roses as it
Comes to us upon the summer breezes
But without innocence we cannot
Enter in    Romulus and Remus suckled
Upon the she wolf teats They were babes
Knew no better than  that she was kind to
Them  Are they not our brothers too in the
Long ago when we  too dwelled there in
Were naked and  unafraid  A parable is
A metaphor to dress the truth and make it
More acceptable to some ears than what
Simple innocence  would make clear.  It
Will be with tears that we douse the fiery
Cherubs "s flames that guard the gates of
Paradise where once we walked naked and
Unashamed and knew then the purest face
Of love that we would ever know the gift
that was our beginning  to be as God  made
Us as He makes us even now dressed only in
Our Innocence that no apple comes between
That I knew not the truth I spoke not the truth
With tears of sorrow and joy I know He has
Opened the gates as if they were never there
Is this not my Father  the Father that I love

From a pallet of black and white
Sketching with my mind making
A poem which you must color in
Out of the of a dimly lit consciousness
The yet unborn is given form an idea a
Meaning that needs expression to be made
Clear Important as it once was such as
Charity when first she sprang from the
Human heart as Divine love  The Child
That was forgotten returned to the womb
The seed was planted before time began is
A new creation that I but sketch in prayer
That you may know her in all her glory


For  Debbie Ann

Do not be mad that I called you mad
I am mad too  Has it not been said:
that two negatives make a positive
Yet we shall rejoice in one another

Of poetry there is no end
from out of the heart the soul the mind
It is mined by the grace of God quickened
Always there is much never heard never
written.  All the libraries of the world can
not hold it.  It is silence that casts a spell
that no word can ere express.  It is eternity
In a moment and a moment in eternity-
the light in the darkness the darkness in the
Light.  The Savior who saves us for another
Day Who is every where and no where ......

Something old some thing new
To thine own self be true is a not
A loud command but one evermore
Softly heard.  Do not crucify your
Self on the cross of authenticity
As if you heard some imperial
Command and that to die in pain
As if you never heard His burden
Is lite To all who hear His Call