Whisper

And if I have to ask
"How much longer will it last?"
And if you doth reply
"What is future once was past"

And if I have to know
"Are their places I must go?"
And if you testify
"For a task that I will show"

And even if I scream
"Will it be the end of me?"
And is just another word
"And I will help you see"

And if I came to you to say
"I give it all away today"
Then you will take me in your hand
And give it back
And grains of sand
Will be the faithful mark
Of truth
And I will go to you to stay.

Walls

Look beyond these walls.
Are they so high?
Are you hemmed in on every side?

Have these walls served their purpose yet?
Look how high!
You could not climb over if you tried;
no matter how badly you wanted to-
It is no use, you are stuck inside.

But there is a lesson here.

Freedom and slavery kiss.
Each fears the other,
Because we fear what we do not understand.
When a leaf is freed, it dies.
When a seed dies, it is born.
And so it would seem that in this life,
All things go on
And go through
And go on again
Inside these high walls.

But one day the gate will be opened.
We will not find freedom.
We will become it.

The Small Things.

I tried to write a poem, but the fact of the matter is, sometimes it is better to say something succinctly. The fact is, I want the big things in life, but the big things don't deliver. Trying to get the big things are like trying to box a bear. Take that analogy as far as you want to. But the small things are the most valuable. The smallest things are the greatest treasures, because what is small is what is unseen, and what is unseen is eternal. So in the end, when all the big is gone, the smallest will be the biggest after all, and they will have been given as a blessing, and not as the result of a fruitless fight.

A Perfect Rain.

I released him-
an action which may have been loathsome
at a separate time.
For I found him, my prize
and I would not have ever surrendered,
were it not for the soft-spoken
rain in the darkness
gently washing the trees huddled
across the midnight landscape.

And this perfect rain,
in the dark of the night spoke straight
to my heart
with words incomprehensible
from a tongue, but comprehensible
from the heart of the Heavens to mine,
and the words of the perfect rain,
by subtle invocation,
demanded action and
by a simple act of compassion,
I released him.

I believe in You.

They scrawled across the concrete wall
"I believe in you" and "to yourself, be true".
They wrote in chalk,
the chalk was blue.

They wrote upon the river wall
"believe in yourself", "from your friends at the Society for Emotional Health"
They told me "You are beautiful"
O, they were stealthy.

But how shall I believe in me,
when I've no power o'er my soul,
that soul will last eternity,
but I can't tell it where to go.

And how in me could you believe,
when I can't even save my own,
think you I'll grant you some reprieve
for words that make a heart grow hollow?

Your sentiments will wash away with rain,
as just your chalk shall, too
but I have found a savior, Yes,
and he fails not to think of you.

But his words shall endure some more
and longer than the threads of chalk.
Such permanence and constancy
amount to more than just mere talk.

So trust in him, believe in him,
and you shall have your hearts desire,
for isn't what you want, indeed,
to lift yourself up from the mire?
But you can not, and chalk can not,
and pasty, broken sayings will fail.
But he extends his staff to you
to pull you up upon his trail
and he will light the way by night,
and grant you shade by day,
and he will give you life at last
when flesh is dead, and self is pale.

House of Mirrors.

"Trust me", she said as she led
me down a padded path,
padded by moss, and loamy oak leaves,
down to the river side.

Down to a clearing, a circle of saplings,
ivy spiraling up their smooth trunks
leaves touching leaves of separate kinds,
looking like love, but only Time
knows that such closeness is poison.
It is not the closeness that is poison itself,
but the sort
of closeness which Time has beheld
which wraps itself around the tree,
leaves touching leaves,
choking the life from her, shading her canopy
until no sun can reach
the leaves of the tree.

Past the trees she leads me, closer to the river
the bank of which is up and black from silt
and old oak leaves, from rot
and there upon the river's edge a
Fairy Circle
as some call it, a ring of wild mushrooms there
how strange that they should form a ring...
What cause have mushrooms to display such humane
characteristic.  Why the ring, of course, certainly must be thus,
that some poor creature perished there, and the mushrooms
gathered round its corpse to mourn, and mourners these remind the
Fenn of that which it has lost.

She has no care for discourse-her only recourse this:  "Trust me".
And there from out of nowhere
or perhaps there all along, my senses being stealed away
by moss and trees and other natural things,
caused me to miss this erection of shimmering glass,
a circle of mirrors.
I am surrounded on all sides, save for the side of the river,
this cold, brown slug of a river.
She says to me, "Trust me". 
But I say, "Let me out".

"They only way out, dear one, is the River".

This I see clearly.  "You have had me, you temptress!  I know
this river's name, it is not Jordan as one might suppose,
no, it is Styx".

"There is no other way out, dear one.  Trust me, therefore, and come to me".

I despair, even unto life.  For her charm is deceptive, her beauty is fleeting.
I know this.  But compared to death, and with her my only choice, her
beauty begins to overcome me. 

But I look up.  There, above, is the branch of an oak tree,
a tall tree, rising to the sky, unhampered by the winding ivy
of the glen outside this Ring of Tricks, this
House of Mirrors.

And so I leap, and the branch catches in my hand, and the rough bark scrapes,

and she screams.

But the branch cracks, and breaks, and I fall hard to the ground! 
And the branch lands square on my shoulder, crack, breaking it,
I know.

and she laughs.

Then I laugh, and through the pain, I lift the branch, and swing wide,
smashing one of the mirrors
and I step out into the clearing,

And I run.

The Shepherd's Sheep

He goes about like
a prowling lion
But resist him,
and he will flee

Though oft your flight
seems his success,
Great One speaks twice
to establish firmly

resistance is futile
for the sheep
when found inside of
lion's jaws

But Shepherd has
great power and wields
a woven cord and
iron rod

Flee and run
and when you tire,
O sheep, despair
is not thy fate

for you will rest
and Shepherd will
not surely fail
to close the gate.