SPRING THAW

 Muddy frozen foot steps

Oozing between banks of snow

Winters recession

Like diseased gums drawn aside

Old teeth drop like icicles

 

IMAGINE: NO POSSESSIONS

 

 John Lennon should have sat down

and had a long talk with his Rolls Royce.

 

Saint John of the Cross once said

it matters not whether a sparrow is bound

by a cord or by a slender thread--

he is bound anyway.

 

I sit here in the house I supposedly own,

and imagine the possessionlessnesss of a Saint.

 

But the real bondage is that which flows from within,

to the six spheres of sense.

 

It is not the fault of the air

that it cannot be grasped by the clenched fist.

 

Every road has to begin somewhere.

Every destination was once only a Thought.

 

Let us realize at the outset

that there is not even Self to own,

and that a little leaven

will one day leaven the whole loaf.

    DEAF DUMB AND BLIND

  

One Sabbath morning as the church

Grew boisterous with a joyful noise,

Two parents entered as I watched,

Led hand in hand behind a boy

 

Who could not see or speak or hear,

Yet led them to the rail and stood

Between the two, to worship there

The Father of the just and good.

 

Behind their backs the hypocrites,

So eager to be seen and heard,

Saw nothing but the masks that fit

Their roles, and thus had their reward.

 

The boy his parents’ hands released

And raised his head in silent prayer,

When suddenly the clamor ceased,

As in his thoughts I seemed to share:

 

“My friends had come to visit me.

I signed with them in great delight;

But all too soon I grew fatigued,

For nothing that we said seemed right.

 

“But now, with Thee to speak I turn

Within my lone and silent heart,

Where I of Thee can ever learn,

And never dwell from grace apart.

 

“But when I visit with my friends,

I put my finest garments on

And fret to please and humor them,

And tire when they stay too long--

 

“Because my mind cannot be free

When it is bound to others’ wills.

They share but gossip’s words with me,

And leave me desolate and ill.

 

“But O my Father, comest Thou,

And I lift up my soul to see;

And with thy Presence in a cloud

My heart is cheered, at rest in Thee.

 

“And though I cannot speak or hear,

And cannot view the world outside,

I would not trade my petty cares

For man’s or angel’s senses five

 

And be without the One I love,

Whose heart beats in the life of all,

Yet dwells in blessed dark above

This world where mind and senses crawl.”

 

Thus prayed the child, in words quite lost

Upon the self-adoring crowd,

Which, thronging to the golden cross,

Pushed him aside with praises loud.

 

     THE WEEKDAY SONG

  

The hunchback hobbled homeward

At twilight one fine day,

And spied a band of fairies

A-dancing in his way

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

“Come dance with us, O hunchback!”

They shouted from their ring.

“Come sing the Song of Weekdays

Permitted us to sing

      On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.”

 

The hunchback joined their circle,

And hand in hand he danced,

The fairy queen his partner,

Exalting in a trance

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

The fays were so delighted

The hunchback danced so well,

They took the hump that stooped him

And blessed him with a spell

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Though crooked he had joined in,

He parted from them straight;

And no one recognized him

When he came home so late

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

The night was young; the fairies

Commenced again their reel,

All in the merry moonlight,

In all their joy revealed

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Along then came a tailor,

A bold and handsome man

Who stepped up to the dancers,

And pushed into their band

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

He gave the queen a sly wink,

And rudely wrapped his arm

About her fairy shoulders,

And chanted with the charm

     Of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

And so this foolish person

Cavorted with the fays,

Until he added Thursday,

Friday, and Saturday

       To Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Then everything got ugly.

The fairies held him down

And clapped the hump upon him

The hunchback had disowned

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

Now you who hear this story

It may be, are forewarned:

The Humble are made perfect,

The Vain become deformed,

     On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

 

 

From an incident recorded in “The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries,” by W. Y. Evans-Wentz

 

ANOTHER AGE

  

When the white kitchen clock stopped

my mother was going to throw it out,

but since I wanted it for a toy

she let me take it outside to play.

 

It had a long black cord I held

by the plug and dragged behind me,

trailing with the gleam of the morning sun on its face

as I roamed through the green dewy clover.

 QUAKER BLOSSOMS

 

                    I

 

A Friend was Richard Galloway,

But Samuel, his great grandson,

Built Tulip Hill on the slave trade—

Estate so proudly Georgian.

 

Nearby, upon the burial ground,

George Fox proclaimed the Inner Light

To those whose shriveled corpses now

Lie vacant where his words took flight.

 

                    II

 

Ten thousand years or more ago,

The first Algonquin settled here

Beside the sprawling Bay we know,

With glaciers melting on their heels.

 

They signed a pact with colonists,

Beneath a spreading Tulip Tree—

Today where Saint John’s College lists

The World’s Great Books for us to read.

 

                    III

 

In childhood I explored the hill

My father built our home upon;

Where Tulip Poplars’ flowers filled

Their boughs and dropped across the lawn.

 

How sweet it was to contemplate

Their petals cupped and yellow-green,

With red and orange glowing faint,

Like passions fading from past scenes!

 

                    IV

 

Employed to search out, sort and track

Old records at your next request,

I browsed an Archives’ moldered stacks

Of rags and wood to pages pressed.

 

Without direction, like sere leaves

That tumble through autumnal fields,

I turned life’s pages uselessly—

What harvest could such idling yield?

 

                    V

 

From what I read between the lines

Of Quaker Records, I will quote

The whispers of the wind that winds

Its circuits through old Poplar groves:

 

What does it mean? A child squats low,

And lifts one fallen flower to view

Its pigments in the dew drops’ glow,

Reflecting vistas strange and new.

 

SOME SECRET GARDEN

  

To us the winter’s end is signified

By Hylas croaking from the budding trees,

Their song like sleigh bells, after having climbed

From hibernation underneath the leaves

And broken branches toward the sunny heights,

Their vocal sacs swelled up with evening air.

Their chorus chants of such romantic nights

As you and I remember, when our care

Was for some secret garden and embrace,

Where what we took to be our hearts and minds

Succumbed to Nature and pursued a trace

Of fleeting passion as we pulsed through time.

We dreamed it in the ice of our repose,

Our sleigh bells frozen underneath the snow.