Modest is but to shield the eyes from the
Bright Star that is our innocence that we
Might not be blinded by the  of the light
With the all consuming desire to claim it
Drawn like a moth to the flame.  Seeking
Seeking the light that seeks us.  Surely this
Is a happy death.  We are drawn to Love- A
Consuming Love is to be together at last the
Dream fulfilled; to be together.  To be  One
With our hearts desire: Innocent forever We
Are but God;s Love Song.  Rising to heaven
As the smoke of prayers  is writhing upward
Returning to Him the gift of our Innocence

The world,  My world ever stands
Before  my eyes a replacement for one
You; for a great longing for the Love I
Lost.  A love I cannot replace by any
Other.  But looking back seems I can
Remember so much beauty and I realize
Now that I was not looking into the void
At otherness but it was you I was seeing.
The many faces of your beauty were all
Your gift to me of love, a love unknown
In its greatness.  Unknown and never to
Kept but to be free. Yet even in its partings
Faithful to all it's  Promise.   Saying " soon you
Will know me again- who I am- as I say Adios
Again and again.  I am love and the one you
Love.  And I am love's unknown grandeur" Be-
Cause I always think I am looking for another
When I am  really still seeing you my love.

Let us be quick about  this To love is to
Serve That is how you know it is love the
Willingness wholehearted willing-passion
To be the servant of another as a god unto
Your heart.  Such euphoria it is to know the
Gift has been accepted and understood for
What it is -that you have been conquered by
Love willingly and joyfully without pride
Without reservation, without change.  So
Is God unto you; loving without shame is to
Know that you are made in His image

To the one who knows it i
Come quickly

I am loyal to my life because it is all
I have Who I am.  So therefore despite
Its' many short comings which I have
Railed against and still will rage against  
Yet I would not sever the vital cord ever.

It is the same with my church and my country
They are my world and my universe-despite
All Vesuviuses; despite all black holes- all that
Is imagined or real that threatens the good life.
I can never say I do not wish thee anymore and
Mean it.  Such I believe is not my idea alone but
All are loyal to the same and it is rooted in the
Common love that is most plain and unadorned
By pretense and humbug sham theatrics of flag
Natives are we of that land which  is of our God
This Love it is which commands my allegiance
To this is my loyalty which I l never voluntarily
Surrender.  But not my will but thy will be done

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

A frail fragrance leads us-
The wonderful odor of the long
Gone
Carried on a vagrant breezes that
Leads us but we cannot trace them
We only know they are true; and are
Heartfelt.  They did not grow old
With us but are always in their Spring
.  Did they depart because of a
Misunderstanding; something that
Was said or unsaid?  I grieve to
Think the consequences of such
Whimsy maybe sovereign in our
Lives but then memories are such
Fragile things and still we seek on

Every breeze the scents of hope-


That we yet may follow where our
Heart leads us.  I Am ever on the  
Way to our being  together again
If there be love this is no vanity


For Rumi and Emily Who visited with me
this morn

In the beginning is nothing 'n might have been
Are the same, the origins.of everything.  Like
A locomotive coming down the track in the
Night- before you can hear it makes no sound
Then you hear the whistle and the great thunder
As it goes by till you can't hear it again.  The
Greatness of what is is less than what only migtht
Have been In the beginning.  Everything God
Let be came nothing and like lonely traveler who
Yearns to be home again returns to nothing.  Before
The big bang there was silence and there is its joy
Not forgotten  is what might have been. Something
Tells us not get above our raisin.  What is there to
Have if I cannot have you and I still think about
What might have been when it all seemed possible
So I am not sad to be going back to my beginnings
Long times ago but it seems like only yesterday

It is an odd thing about misunderstandings odd I say
Because they never break even, almost never get re-
Solved can only be forgot and that's hard to do.
Think on it and what's to do;  take the blame 'n you
Might be wrong and be coldly stung again 'n if your
Not to blame can saying your sorry ever help.  No
It takes grace and about that what can be known and
Not be smart  alecky.  No, misunderstanding is a hard
Nut to crack and hard to forget and never remember
Again and if you do remember well there is no sense
In that now than there was before.  So I may be wrong
but I'll say it anyway: Forget me not my old friends ...


With inspiration from Robert Frost and Edith Wharton

Even a mean dog suffers when beaten;
And as our fathers have said do not
Doubt child that this chastening hurts
Me.  I am pained with you yet I do it
Because you are worth it and to lose
You would be a much greater suffering
For each of us.   I say to you my friends
Take no joy in punishing your fellows
But that our valued brothers be restored
To us.  Justice without Love is a demon
Let loose.  And what of the victims of the
Mad dog.  Consider this:  If one repent of
Evil that evil wil be undone.  The Truth of
Love shall span all horizons as far as the
Eye can see and on  into the infinite.
Past; Present and Future are all restored.
Neither Truth nor Love shall be diminished;
The power of Love shall know no limit but
Passes beyond our full  understanding....
It is enough to be a child in the Kingdom
Of God why would would you seek  more?

What a ***** this dying is
When you go she won"t
Be anymore-There's that
A satisfaction in it; then
You remember the little
Girl so dearly loved. Can
Not something of this yet
Remain =like the last star
In the night sky to be seen
Before the new dawn-my wish
To know my child's soul -so
Bright. so beautiful so loving
Would be mine again but she says
Go go who cares -So I stay.   I am
Nothing if not perverse and may
Be its true that in heaven- I hate you
Means I love you and  silence there
Means I am yours and you should
Know it.  But I don't  and Its a *****

Our first love to the known being
Of the unknown Father that gives
Us the life that first perceives  light
Where I come to my being needy
Helpless with desires crying to be.
Be gratified hoping someone will
Hear that one is there for me, the
One we call Our Mother.  She is
Our first love that defines in its  
Origins and in its essence what
We mean by love, the deep and
Abiding Gratitude to that being
Kindness incarnate come to us in
Our need from the unknowable
Father of whom she is His word.

...hope



uncertain debating with itself
seeing defeat around every
corner but then again its
counterpoint again the theme
with variations but not purely
this but with questions of
what to wear to Milly's party
and what to feed the kids
then weariness restless so
much left to do to find
resolve a wish for quietness
that will not come until:
Love until love is forgot...

My country is a place where the
Great are small and the small are
Great.  It is mostly what I gained
By experience  and a little of what
I learned about from afar.  In my
Land the greatest man is  my Dad
Dad and the most loved people are
Those I have personally known.  I
Forgive them first and last for never
Having been recognized as saints.
None to my knowledge has ever held
Political office.  I have never shaken a
"Great" man's hand.  I feel I am no less
For all the stars being faraway.  I would
Not have it any other way.  My country
Is not an abstract place.  It is a known-
Remembered place.  It does not ask me
To shed another's blood nor my own as
Proof that I am patriotic nor to obey the
President or a general who says he knows
What is right and I should do to be free.
I voluntarily give my love-not my blood
My country is a fresh green place that is
Full of Gods perfume from the flowered
Meadows where the river valleys meet a
Sunlit morning sea where I first met all
And the great stars never spoke  but to
Wish us all well because He is kind and
Most heavenly is this my Fatherland.  In
My country where he has hidden charity.



I  believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said: If God
Did not love the common man why did he make so
Many of them

...Are you nobody too?  Emily Dickenson


There are no common people-just people and
maybe some a little less just. but who am I to
Judge?
.

In my father there was the  greatness
Of poetry-the poetry of greatness.
About true greatness is that it never
Is just was but is and will be.  The
Same is true of true poetry when the
Cliche is someone will hear it again as
When it was brand new and it will be
The echo heard down the corridors of
Time.  No-one speaks to all men, the
Lone man is the universal man and love
Comes again to the despised overcoming
All injury.  Greater than the greatest dreams
Realized the sun is a candle to the Father
He is gone and I shall not see his like again.

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...

Like a ribbon of sunlit emeralde caligraphy
In arabic I held it close to my eyes.  Only a few
lines in black ink but all I could see was how
Green the grass is.  I cannot remember the

Words only that they were true not why.


For Stanley Godluski

My love slips away.
Through my fingers
Around corners and
I do not see her.  Can
Not find her anymore
I cannot control my
Dreams but she will
Always be there to hear
Hear me say once again
I love you. Just things
You cannot control and
Things she cannot do Be
In the big world where she
Will always be my little
Girl.  She was there with
Me in my dream last night
Will she come again tonight
So I can tell her I love her still
I do not know but I know I will
Love her always. Till my dreaming
Stops and we are together again.


For Lis

Though she is young she is beautiful
It cannot be a sin to love and I love her
But I can say nothing and there is only
That one time that one moment that was
Ours when our gazes locked in the yard. 
Not a hundred feet  Yet  it is some sixty-
Plus years now  and still I know its true
That I love her still, will desire her forever.  
And never be able to let her go.  Yet I cannot
Say her name for she is not her name.  She
Who is forever is too beautiful for a name
That  i can say for feat this love   be shamed
It was close to where the old apple tree stood



Suncrest Memories

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"

The dog barked down the road.  He is facing something I cannot see but a solemn silence surrounds both of us.  What is what was.  A chip of time, a bit of mica catching a sun beam; capturing infinity in a moment that only we can see.  Diamonds in the dust so are the  children of the everlasting one.

Never never forever
But for a little while
now  we do love, can
Love and that is all our
Forever is and what for
I would give every other
Forever for. To now love
You a little more.  Forever
Is only how long I will miss
you when you are far away.

For my daughter
I Love you

Conventi0nal logic tells us that
Nothing that is impossible is
Possible.  Good as far as it goes
But the known and unknown
Coexist- figure and ground-it
Is contrast that is ever needed
Necessarily coincident to be-
Come conscious of conscious-
Ness.  Thus though it seems
Illogical the nothing that is
Impossible must be possible.
What profit a man if he gain
The whole world but lose his
Soul?  Do we not know the
Answer?  But what difference
Does this knowing make?  No
Difference between difference
And No  difference because
They are One.  I die I am born
I die again.  Each is antithetical
Each is an affirmation of the
Other and are coincident in
The micro consciousness of the
Moment eternal. With God all
Things are possible because No
Thing is possible without God
I am that I am   All -Nothing
We Are like Him His Children

Oh
Eros how great thou art
Thou who serve  our God
You command us to fall
From our little pedestals
Of righteousness that for
Him are as naught-Fall in
A wilderness of darkness
Where we know no more
And doubt claims our soul
By right; where only Love
Love most merciful in grace
Does lift us back to the light
He remembers not our sins
For we knew not but were
As children as children still
To Him who always Loves
Let us with joy and thanks
Praise Him who cleansed our
Hearts of imagining evil.

As the Lord hath said:" There is none without sin.
No not one!"  Who then can condemn?  Who can
Judge?  The judged and the condemned who can
With honesty claim that they have been defamed
By all who dishonestly proclaim that they have the
Right to judge. But who has never made that claim.
No not one.  Lord holy is your silence; Blameless.
"Be still and know the Lord your God."  Then may
You  say you joyfully know He has heard my prayer

To be the other whom i seek
I say not until i cannot hear
Myself; nor any others.
Then from not all will be
(or not)  Let not.  Let be
Be still...

It is not...
Not Natural; Not Causal; Not Logical
It is Between all Changes
All arises from it
It is not an it
It is an I
We are little i's
When we knew our littleness
We Loved I
He is Our Father
Tells us in all that is that
We know Nothing Is
We were Nothing once
Before we were small
To Nothing we are  returning...

We live in a clash of cymbals then hear the noise and the opposing silence.  Another thing and another thing.  We see it is always so  Love and Loss; Love and rejection a double dose.  Surely there is shame and pride, beauty and ugliness, long summer days dreaming unafraid then head on toward fearful death so much left undone unsaid a total loss farm we bought then against the end one famous long ago our advocate in the stunning dream the rejected stone.  It is over.   One is born remembering nothing.  Blessed nothing.  It was better it seems than this rude place.  But now I know no other.Some day it shall be written,perhaps I will write about how lovely it was in the morning.

When things end too soon
Before you are ready-
You learn their true value
Count them your greatest
Treasures-How much they
Meant to you by their loss
By this measure I  have been
Rich though I rarely knew it

I live now mostly with memories
Of those I loved. the colorful friends
And those belonging to scenes and
Places I passed  so swiftly thru but
Still in their echoes call...
Do I wish they were all with me now

No life needs time and space; another
Life time would be needed, then  again
Another after that.  No if I could ask it
Would be that soon we could visit again
Like when you go to school know you will
See your parents for supper so do not miss-
That we could always visit for a while and
Would soon-be dropping in to talk a bit of
The past and what is new--an I love you and
Aways will Don"t be a stranger now See
You soon  Your always welcome ya hear
Does that seem too much to ask of God
When memories  are  just not enough?
Its not too late late but  seems so long.

It is always now.  It is now that
I write and it will be now that
You read this.    It will be now
Always.  Now whether I know
It or not.  It is now simultaneous
Pardon me Dr Eiinstein every-
Where at once.  The light from
A distant star that reaches us
A million years from now left
From its unknowable time that
Was now then. Coincident and
Everywhere and no one needs
To know it but One who knows
All. Ever new ever the same.  Now
Is Gods other name-I am that I am
Come to me and be with me Now

I would not tell you of the
Long ago it is too beautiful
And would only make you
Sad that it is gone-It was
Sad then but we knew not
Its beauty but a little.  You
Say time is like the smoke
That gets in your eyes and
Makes you cry  then it gets
In your eyes again.  Long
Ago when it was new it
Ending even then and
Some saw it like it as
It was.  Still smoke gets
In your eyes like it was
Only yesterday All that
Was True of long ago.

Too long  have been obsessed with  this
Riddle.  I must let it go that things are
Not as they seem .neiher this nor that..
I cannot sing my song and think about
This riddle that is not a riddle at all but
Simply the way things are and are not

I am odd are you odd too?
I have long identified with
His story-a man who lost
So much to s war and who's
Voyage of return is full of
Adventures trying to get
Back to his beloved family;
Penelope .and Telemachus.
These days My television is
On 24 hours a day.  How
Did Homer know but then
He was only retelling a story
From  even more ancient time.
The Word of God tells us He
Is the Word and Homer was
A Child of the Word and His
Story is our story who are its
Sons and Daughters.  We are
Odd but can still find in the
Great myths the retelling of a
Common Life that is always
With us but must be retold
(Best by a campfire with our
Fellow voyagers but then Is
There not always a darkness)
Lest the magic be forgotten.
Let our words be for the fire

Ah there are other dreams than this
Some better Some worse
We seek a place to settle but are only
Adventurers exploring the wilderness
Looking for that other place called
Home that seems we left so long ago
Forgotten  now is the way back to the
Long ago.  In dreams we seek to know
A Way that is neither good nor bad,  We
Would not if there was another better but
All we know is that we cannot stay in this
Flawed and mortal place forever.  Still we
Loved and cannot leave until all the golden
Links of all that was and will be are One and
Nothing is lost that is saved to us in heaven.
We cannot leave here yet and so we wake and
The devil we  know  will not let us go till we
Know this too is on the the beloved way.  So  
We wait upon the Lord  Soon we will be home
The journey is not over Some dreams are bad
Some dreams are good.   To each a purpose

Dear one perhaps tonight I may catch the golden
Ring and you will be with me in my last dream

How wonderful -becoming stronger
Soon I will forget all my care...
Yet as thru mist .a fog horn warns
It is your watch.  Be vigilant!
Some needful duty
Some charity owed to
The one I love -that I leave
Alone in pain.   Know then
You are priceless.  Let my
Lost Bliss give testament to
That Love conquers all
Nor counts heavy the cost

But speak to  again  little
One If it offend you
I will write no more
It was more than bliss
That I could  know you

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.

You have to die to forget old age.
I forget it often but it is quick to
Remind me that it is still around
Spreading rumors of my demise

I hear the children playing; their laughter most of all. and
Why am I here alone in my bedroom listening.  I too am young
I should be with them but I am not.  So long ago I  hear their cries
Their song so beautiful as the sun goes down and I in my room
Alone -so long ago a witteness still to this memory of my youth

Today is bright but tomorrow it will pales before the long ago-like so many phantom steps, a journey of days only seem because...once some bright sun's glory ceased, evolved not but was abruptly gone.  There the heart stopped and remained like a soldier sentinel faithful mid beat to  a past tha was  no more. Yes my little children once we were young.  You were young and you were my world.   That is what I remember the yesterday I will recall,the place where our treasure are  stored that neither moth nor rust can corrupt-where we shall awake after a little sleep, the last of the shredded  storm gone in the brightening dawn- only a day after yesterday we  will be there together again. No time shall have passed.

The eloquence of the broken is
Incredibly eloquent; Hard men
Do cry when the truth is spoken
Time is once we were young; now
We are young still;  that is why we
Cry.  Then and now are One but are
Broken into past and present and our
Heart in two; our soul is given words
That pulse from our wounds like blood

For Barbara remembering you on one starry night; and
||PBS story about young people  going to Casa Susanna

The experts at what is right
Are Not Experts.  How many
Times does this need to be said:
They know not what they do
Forgive them-They know not.

Better there be liars than what
Liars say be true.  Why liars?
Because they claim to know
But they know not and they
Know they know not and ask
Not to be forgiven-shun it
Claiming righteousness.
Have they not heard that
There is none righteous-
No not one.  Of Lies
There are two kinds
the facts and the in-
Uendo of  assumed con-
Sensus which is by far the
Worse: :" He is a Jew" Fact
Unspoken- Untrustworthy
Person and Christ killer
One and same Christ the
Jew and the slayer-God
The son of man-man
Having no false gods
Before Him.  Man Alone
He know not and knows
He know not but still He
Says I am am that I am.

At Last
Before death
Love life
Your life
With a love
Absolute-
The one who
Loves is greater
Than death.  You
Are that one.  Born
In mourning which
Is the prayer that
God always hears
And always answers

I am climbing
The tallest mountain
Because I want to be there-
Where there is no mountain
I am climbing still to where
There is no mountain only
Air.  Then soaring higher
Because still I am not there
Where I can see the green
Earth as it is in heaven
Then if I fall say I fell in
Love.  I am climbing still
Climbing in the air.

Am I?; a lone question asked: am I still? a continuous tone till nothings heard-Silent is the question silence is the answer;  who nothing  knows nothing tells.

The consciousness of self
Of one's self makes all other
Celebrity pale-this individual
Self means to each one of us
More than the sum all worldly
History combined:  My pain,
Delight and my despair they
Are what I know most vividly
Even in sympathy and empathy
It is myself that I feel all else is
Abstract , a kind of heresy of
Mutually agreed upon gossip
As every infant know I am the
Star and I Live Forever.  This is
Universal wisdom-Have we let
Go of this Truth given another
Story for"politeness" sake. Not
Our own.  There is too much to the
Contrary-the evidence all says I am
I grant that it says the same thing
To you.  The point is that the ikonic
Figure Christ must be representative
Of thatI am reality and that is where
His Truth exists-that is that our lives
Equate to His.  As in life so in death.
Yet it is a metaphor-the identification
Is not exact but if it means anything
You can surely see yourself in the glass
And Know this story is about you-you
Who cannot die, for if you rise again
Then surely this world is a dream and
Is that not what you always thought
But in this dream you were crucified
Did not your disciples laugh and say
We told you so a lie you were the last
To know it is enough to make you cry
Like a baby and so you shut them up.
Yes we are all one one with the Father
But Forget me not I am His only son.
And so  He left as we all must to dream
Again a better dream as we soon shall
In that place where death is no more
Nor ever was-In My Father's House
There are many mansions.  Believe...

To take the unbearable burden of
Precious memory from our hearts
But that all be not forgotten forever
To distill from the passing multi-
Verse just the merest essence of
The life that was  so dear and  so
Plenteous that it all could be borne
Forward and to leave some tincture
To solace the broken hearted that all
Is not lost and that there is yet a key
To times past and of laughter long ago

In the terrible shadow
We made love; it was
Always our right but
Only now claimed as
Morality was disbarred
To ram the enemy's wall
Someday it would return
Proclaiming peace is re-
Stored.  Now peaceniks
beware your day is done.
Seems like only yesterday
It was them or us.  Time...

















Hidden charity

All of
our yesterdays set aflame triumphant
Whether tears or joy we were there at
The times s of our life.  Like a bridge
Spanning eternity.  Triumphant  all our
Days gone to glory is    love's tribute to
What is without compare the parade of
The days of our love; the days of our life
Gilded in their remembrance in my mind

Spring 1960
Teotihuacan Mexico
Morning

"Originales Patron" It was the voice of a boy
Not yet ten. It was an empty  dry plane as
I remember almost featureless and barren
Except for the pyramids dusty in shadow
No one around except for he boy and us.
I said what do you mean: Originales"?  He
Said:"Hechsos yo mismo este manana."( I made
them myself this morning) without even a
Smile as he showed us the little clay figures.
They was not a pre columbian relics we were
Being offered for three pesos, about a quarter
We laughed but he was not joking.   They were
Truly rare, a remembrance of the heart of Mexico
A boy outside of an ancient and storied place
Place now abandoned telling the truth that
Mattered: I made them myself this morning.


For Francisco & His Family With Love

Forgive us this we ask you
Acknowledging our errors
Those that we know and
Those we know not-but of
Those we do not yet know
Are we not also asking that
Your forgiveness come with
That wisdom that belongs
To love that we may not do
Keep doing  to one another
What is to their soul's harm.
So to we ask this for those
We would forgive that they
Must reckon and reckoning
That they like us be so ever
Guided by the one love that
Always embraces all of us.