METAPHYSICALLY FIT

  

Around and round the Mall they go;

And when they stop, nobody knows.

 

In groups of two or three or four

They power walk the shopping floors--

 

Or so they think.  If I should speak,

I’d tell them that they’ve sprung a leak!

 

Their energy is spurting out,

Like oil from some burst tanker’s spout.

 

They walk to keep themselves in shape;

To do so they must concentrate

 

Upon a fixed idea of How

And Who they are. So like a plow

 

Each one strides briskly, cutting through

Us loiterers, to pay their dues.

 

I may not know as much as they,

But I can waste a better day

 

Just strolling the world’s Mall at large,

Shoplifting visions free of charge.

 

My technique ain’t no hocus pocus:

They are simply much too focused,

 

Blinded to the merchandise

I pick and choose from at a price

 

That all of them refuse to pay:

The loss of speed! A fair exchange,

 

To swap their warped mentalities

For wellness such as I conceive--

 

Considering the benefits

Of being metaphysically fit.

 

THE INCARNATION

  

One evening as I sat home by the fire,

The winter solstice circled in the dark

About the house. I felt it through the walls—

The dimly lit walls flickering like my heart.

 

It seemed to me I was an amputee

Home from the war, shell shocked and traumatized,

My face disfigured and my mind impaired.

 

All of a sudden I was known by God,

Who had become me in my misery

And taken on himself my guilt and fear—

Before my embryo had been conceived,

Before the universe had been revealed.

 

And I, transfigured though as yet unhealed,

Was blessed in what was once my blind despair.

 

          ENSEMBLE GALILEI

 

The Celtic Harp and Fiddle seize the day

With Scottish and Uillean Pipes and Flute,

The Viola da Gamba and Oboe,--

All intertwined to fill Saint John’s Great Hall,

Therein to celebrate the thirteenth time

The Winter Solstice with their Christmas cheer.

A seasoned Voice from Public Radio

Is instrumental also, joined with these,

And reads Jack London and Kieran O’Hare.

The Music and the Words together bring

Each other such communion of glad life,

That even the One Hundred Books receive    `

The Spirit, and come tripping off their shelves!

As Kant with Hegel, Twain with Plato dance,

The February Swans and Easter Snow

Loom through the ancient windows. Sunset yields

Its influence while Heaven and Nature sing.

 

PREMIERE SNOWMAN

  

Before the universe was born

Out of the mind of man;

Before mankind was self-deformed

By his own grasping hands;

 

Far stretching through the wilderness

The snow lay on the ground,

So dense within the forest depths

No food could there be found.

 

The birds and deer grew small and thin

For hunger in those woods;

The wolves and owls were languishing

For prey to feed upon.

 

So faint were all the animals,

So weakened and so chilled,

That they were inconsolable

And slept to ease their ills.

 

Then night came on, and with it wind

That shivered all the trees,

And scattered falling branches in

The drifts that lay beneath.

 

It was as though the wind itself

Had feet and hands and arms,

The way it pushed the snow about

And shaped it to a form

 

No animal before had known,

Or dreamt of in its sleep.

What we would call a Snowman rose

Upon the hoary deep,

 

And sparkled in the morning sun

Before the startled eyes

Of elk and squirrels and chipmunks,

That fled from it to hide.

 

But as the day grew bright with dawn,

The Snowman did appear

As shelter from the wintry blast,

And beast and fowl drew near,

 

To be protected from the threat

Of bitter cold and sleet;

And on the icy ground was spread

Each day an endless feast

 

Of seeds and nuts and roots and leaves,

Green grass that they might find

As on the meadows that would teem          

When summer was so kind.

 

The predators no more did slay

For food, but ate the meal

Provided for their former prey,

Their kinship now revealed.

 

All through the stormy season’s throes

They fed this shrine before,

Till spring dissolved the man of snow

And offered them its store.

 

This legend you have now been told,

Of how things took their course

Before the world was bought and sold,

And took a turn for worse.