DEDICATION
This first book of the trilogy: “The Odyssey of Heart,” first appeared August 28, 2001 online under BeingQuest.com Academy of the Arts, a Minnesota based publication dedicated to the prospect of the reclamation and reformation of the moral world.
We at BeingQuest.com have adopted the proposition to consider, among the many ten-thousand apparently worthy aims we may engage our energies on whether, in fact “…really, only one thing is necessary.” ~Jesus of Nazareth
“The Odyssey of Heart” is our attempt to decipher this enigmatic proposition, and if true, what it may mean for both us individually in our daily lives, and for The People in the birth-pains of their struggle upon this same mission. May the humane and best of our hoped-for future prevail!
Orientation
Not in myself I trust, for I am weak
To noble deeds and proofs of lasting worth
But ever forms of faith and hope poured over us
When meekness, in heart, with love communes.
Better than reason, brighter than the tropes
Wrought by our sager minds who, for all times
Sought to mark down in sign that yet unseen...
Better the just humility of faith
That, from itself, bears truth’s emerging light
Able to steer the golden reins through heights
Of knowing, where the dryer air imbues
Essential manna: food of gods, the mead
Which heroes owning, few dare earn, is sup
Of perfect comfort, ever over-flown
In foment of new life; from pride's decay
To boundless grace, our liberty revealed.
Best Charity, heart of saints and ever true
To faithfulness of hope! Great care you show
Where there’s no rod of law save principles
Most holy, by the proud unknown; exalting
Sacred sense, beyond surmise; submissive
Tender, patient, always kind with comfort
For the sojourn soul, from tribulation born…
Relieve our cause, pour down your shining balm
As in this world we all must yet forbear
And lead us straight. Held fast in you we live.
Such faithfulness of care is born Below
Where many hours again we turn aside
Ignoble ways, by empty musings led
Where much is lost of hope, too troubling bound
But helped by love and truth for healing song.
Even the best of faith, not always solved
For clearest virtue, evident in deed
Is made exempt from trial; better to prove
The gold of piety when thorough plied.
Such constancy of soul is sooner known
When, as is judged by some, we're given leave
To go our way when yet is left behind
That care of grace we’d own, born from the heart.
So help my halting verse your work portray
Set down with pain to coax the one in all
And tend the goal of peace our heroes seek.
May then we own consistently our worth
Through mundane laws that, constant, drape the soul
And from the faintest things, secure our truth
Distilled to clarity in care of all.
Always, for grace, this comforting's renewed
Untainted by the loot of rusted gain-
Foul dross! Many, for this, are bound in chains
Though freedom shunts the petty tyrant’s rule.
We look to sift and ply our souls again
For better ways, to each more kindly given
Though groaning under pride; wretched stain
Of brutal men, too noisy under heaven.
Yet heaven in each we sing for tiding songs
And phantom ways distrust. In each is all-
That honest faith, for which the brave are strong
And proving glad, the patient cares install.
Great sympathy, the worth of each conjoined
To mirror in the promised, home-felt rest
Our truth and proven love, forever coined
In honor of the victors’ upright quest!
This call upon the wild that springs
To dignities of life, refined
Not of ****** mind-
A secret that has long been kept
Of old, which seers saw and wept;
Yet how shall one so lonely, frail
Train the flashing reins to follow?
Steady now, upon the gates and gap
Defending 'gainst presumption, overflown
To self-conceit, abominable
We glimpse the true and lasting vision
Whose care is no fruitless burden
But for the proper meekness, bidden
And yoke, humility, sure-bound
Not glancing here or there
To fix in heart upon the clear-
New city, famed uncloven stone
That tends azure upon the midnight sun
Out-braving that of brutal minds
By light of faith and the sublime.
Yet can the child's waking care
Through tribulation heroes bear
Overcome the vast depravity
Being only a child?
Resolved upon their sojourn friends
They bide the cornered time among the trees
Whose verdant leaves
Drip honeyed milk from gently swelling hills.
Reclined beside our sacred hearth
They turn aside the mortal strife
For truth in love, assaying peace;
So drinking down their heart’s content
They fortify ‘gainst burdens, bent
By iron rods, waved over the whole-
This world’s proud tyranny.
Some pain to bear, yet worth to lend
Through grace, by ways that flows within
The open gates of honest faith!
Not wielding rule of force, they sway
To ends, the burnished virtue won.
Of such is the vision-
Demeter’s preternatural ones.
Heigh kind upon the sacred fountain
Whose sentiments brought forth upon the fold
Life's faithful brook, more true than what is told
Of bitter waters, flowing pure as gold!
What can put at naught?
As ageless, undaunted abides
The head, by right established
From the heart, just inclined.
No thing in heaven or earth
Thwarts their destined uprightness
But straight through the gates they pass on
With wholly complied intent.
Blessed are those who shall drink
The waters that flow out this throne
As ancient wonders rise on the brink
Of Eleusinian fields, whose hearth is home!
Descending on the heart anew
Anointed by the morning dew
They seek consistently
To own their bright integrity.
With fuller' soap in hand
They wash the inner walls
And scourge away what is not grand
Within the darkened chamber's hall.
Relying on substantial grace
Comes falling on corrupting stains
A foment on the one relation
Love has earned and faith persuades.
Intending for a future, cleansed
Inclined and fixed, the will more pure
Finds out what lasting, perfect friends
Commend as worthy and true.
Thus seeking only to reflect
Their crystal best in every word
They overthrow the world, naught bereft
Of innocence, one mind and heart assured.
Though many cynics traffic in the hour
Barking at the heels of sacred power
Truth kicks the scale of false standards
As light from out the dark more daring spreads
Through the wilderness
A flowering festival of peace, assured
.
Now mythic, seven thunders ring
A promised day of liberty;
A day of freedom for the captive-
Hurrah, the day of Jubilee
Hosanna, arching Sabbath for all times-
Light and life in love’s relation!
The potsherds scoff
Alack! They cry-
Aurum heirs treading down the mountains.