Speed Swiftly Time

Though time speeds swiftly on his vibrant way

I do not fear his silvering decay:

So lightly tethered to the earth am I

That traveling by my star, I reach the high,

White silences ... and view the Master's weaving,

Its flawless primrose strands, the gray relieving.

How beautiful the pattern He has woven

For me to follow! Never shall the cloven-

Hoof and lion-roar leave tragic scars

On its ultimate perfection. Even war's

Harsh and discordant notes of death will blend

Into His symphony where kingdoms have no end.

Speed swiftly time. As you pass, clear and free,

I hear the steps of immortality.

Heaven's Alchemy

When in my garden of Gethsemane

The sun was darkened and my song was stilled.

My heart was bleeding, for a part of me--

The boy I birthed and reared with love--was killed.

While spheres were clashing, Heaven's mighty power

Rebuilt my shattered kingdom when I said,

"Thy will be done." The moment--magic hour!

Restoring my torn soul. Upon my head

I felt a crown of peace I had not known.

The veil was thinned ... The Master at the helm

Let me behold my living son, His Own,

And see the beauty of His glorious realm,

Its kingdoms reaching far as thought can look--

Mortality but prefaces God's book.

Singing Pens

No Idle Playing on a Harp

The alluring

Grandeur of death

Bids me live gloriously-unafraid

In the now of the cycle.

Once, near the door

Death opened to admit a soul,

I glimpsed beauty unconceived before;

The burgeoning acres of immortality--

Every seed planted here, blossoming there;

The dream being builded;

A temple with carilloned towers arising,

The living builders singing the retrain,

"Nothing is lost, nothing is ever lost."

I shall welcome the silent restorer.

Unafraid, pass through the shadowed valley

To the blinding radiance awaiting

And accept the challenge--

No idle playing on a harp.

Different

Old Man in a Garden

Slowly he walks the paths of stepping stones
Tapping his cane, and hears the overtones
From the All-Source of beauty. Clear and still,
Within the chalice of a daffodil
He listens to Infinity declare
The resurrection promise everywhere.

He pauses by the lilies, there to glean
The sweet compassion of the Nazarene
As he caresses blossoms virgin-fair--
To him they speak the gentle Master's care.

In reverence he kneels that he might see
And feel the truth of immortality
Where violets awakening in the sod
Retell the miracle of death ... and God.

I Touched Her Worn Still Hands

Serene and beautiful, renewed,
She lay sleep. As yearningly
I touched her worn, still hands, I heard
Footsteps of immortality.

Faint Whisperings

In solitude I hear faint whisperings
From some ethereal sphere where once I lived
And loved and learned before I came here through
The door of birth. And oftentimes when I
Firm-clasp a stranger's hand across the miles
Or at my door, I hear the distant bells
Of some far Temple where we both have knelt;
I breathe the fragrance of the jasmined-air
Of a celestial garden; hear the song
Of an aeolian harp that once was strummed
By heavenly winds ... I hear faint whisperings--
Perhaps the breath of immortality.