"Though the mills
Of God grind slowly;
Yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience
He stands waiting,
With exactness grinds He all."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Mill

The grueling weight
of happenstance,
A millstone for to grind,
It deflates the ego
And shows us
Where we're blind,
It renders flesh a ruin
Obliterates the mind,
We leave our idols desolate
Leave the ties that bind.

Under painful hardship
We release the very things
Which put us in the circumstance
And caused the suffering
We leave behind our craving
For wealth and diamond rings
Everything exalted
All exalted above God...

That means EVERYTHING

Whatever you adore
On this temporal earth
Whatever gives you pleasure
In which you find worth

These very things will shackle you!
You'll find out they're not free.
They are just the Golden Calf
Of base idolatry.

But the millstone slowly purges
Turning hour by hour
Turning the wheat kernels
Into useful flour.

And so I am refined
As I surely must
Put to naught my flesh
Make powder all my lusts
For I am as ashes

for I am as dust.*


SS  (C) 8/23/2017

Cné
I believe in love...
In a blink of an eye, a life goes by
extinguished in the end.
And all that's done returns to dust.
No omen can portend.
Yet love lives on, infecting all
and never really dies
It goes beyond the realm of man
to live in fragrant skies.
And on the spacious sea of clouds,
it waits to find a port.
And then it anchors in a soul
to caper and cavort.

Traveler
Perhaps
In the emotional beginning
When head was yet held high
Stumbling through clouds
Of bright blurry skies
Love was a foolish quest
Of paralyzing highs
And now you're telling me
Love can never die?

Cné
Translucent,
the clouds we've sailed
and golden sunsets made
Kisses that we could have had
while watching rainbows fade.
Alas, a life's too short to spend
in fathomless regret.
Perhaps the wheel will turn again
another lifetime yet.
And so, my love
the voyage goes on,
to "golden years"?
We'll see.
Until
the other side reveals
what shall become of "we".

Traveler
Indeed
A dangerous theory
I can't imagine
Love roaming free
The source of all misery
Another invisible ghost
Possessing unaware host
Surely
Love is the blood we bleed
All across time and history
Love is more than a mere key
More than a want
Love is a need...


Cné  
Traveler Tim

Overwhelmed with smiles
Everything becomes happy
When spring comes along

she called me poet
as I took her hand
with thoughts of Romeo
and Juliet
how grand
the title seems
an honorable
obscure profession
to dream
with her my obsession
as we strolled
our way through
a moonlit scenario
of olive trees  
low willow branches
with all the time
a night allows
with  sonnet
stanzas
and her
on my mind

some have their reality
their biases their preconceptions
and I was once a fool
who convinced himself
of certainties
when it came calm and the thunder
a sky blue    
screamed to me
from
the sides
the hidden
inside flowers
and the puffy clouds
sang a chorus
and the flat ground I hovered over saw
that it was round
and on the other side this sphere
I used my power
to consider
my concepts metamorphised
and  up was no more certain
and I opened  
the Bible the Tao
and rearranged
the priorities
of my fears
closed my arms around a vision
hugged and no more feared
my ego having
to be perfect
i sang with
animals among the clouds
just wandering free
and clear
I am barefoot now