So May the Goddess Speak

I am the Goddess--welcoming you home.

Your death-strewn pilgrimage is ended when

You see my arm uplifted. On my loam

You are a kingly commoner; all men

Are peers. No feudal lord, here, has a place.

There is an alchemy within my farms,

My shops and temples, that will leave no trace

Of hunger-specters--or of war-alarms.

With eagle-pinioned valor keep my hearth

A citadel for true democracy--

The chrism of whose love will heal the earth

And planet-far erect an Empery

Of Peace. So bid me live and wave unfurled,

My Glorious Banner over all the world.

Poet's Reed

Sonnet Sequence, First in Democracy Contest

The Goddess Speaks

I wear the robe of sorrow as I stand
Seeing the hope upon the war-etched faces
Of weary pilgrims; for within my land
They will not find the winged empyreal graces
Of which they dream. I hear the muffled clink
Of Judas-coins within my portals, where
They yearn to enter. Standing on the brink
Of apathy's abyss. I breathe the air
Of chaos. By your valor bid me live!
Free me from foes within! Democracy
Can heal all wounds and spirit-scars, and give
The light to build a world-wide sovereignity
Of peace. Then lift your thoughts above the clay--
And walk as brothers in the Master's way.

Open Gate

They come,
A throng of weary pilgrims
Pitiful in their deformities of limb and soul:
Children with eyes empty of laughter;                                                          
Youth burdened with the weight of dead dreams,
Their eyes great, dark, haunted pools
Where moonlight never dances;                                                                  
The elder ones feel only the tide receding,
Tasting the bitter wine of frosted fruit.

Standing in awe
Before the welcoming Goddess,
Their eyes--but burned out embers--
Relight with flickering sparks of faith.
Rusted lips, long divorced from smiling,
Yield to the lubricant of hope.
Bone-lean fingers caress gaunt throats
That too long have felt the choking leash of fear.

Yearningly they come to the portals of Eden--
Looking beyond they see
The green acres of democracy,
The lilied fields of peace ...

The Goddess smiles.
Her arm uplifted in blessing,
She hears the prelude to their song
Whose melody will swell into a triumphant chord
As, laboring in her fields, her shops and temples,
They will know the joy of which they dreamed,
The peace they thought to find only in Heaven.
With bowed heads, reverently they enter
The open gate, the gate of America.