(Poetry) We Were So Nearly There

                                                                        

We were so nearly there

For further fly all our cherished aspirations 

Than we could ever imagine

Our bright hopes

Though they be only thought and so briefly seen

Have breath and life

What we once conceived of virtue and true living

Of beauty beyond all our fondest dreams

That which came so close and was so real awhile  

Went softly streaming by

Veiled in silken clouds and airy wine

Oh, but we were so nearly there 

We felt the flicker of life’s wings

Living things brushed past

But reaching out to touch

We lost

Oh, had we only known then

How to enter in  

But before we knew it

The vision had slipped on by and fled us

What had seemed so possible was now only a dream

And, oh, the emptier we felt for having seen

But no bright purpose was ever lost that once has been

Truth’s star’s still there

As deep inside as it is above 

Where night’s endless light is                                            

Our mansion’s kept, our heart’s voice mapped

Upon Love’s palm our place

And the everlasting vision etched

Out held, kind, ever offering

Love’s hand is always there

‘We always may be what we might have been.’

              *

                                      

Vol. 1. / Caught Up...

A man stands against the sun, a ring around his edges

A circling of intrinsic golden light

He moves softly forward, coming straight towards me

He doesn’t stop he goes on right through me

And out behind me on the Other Side

I turn around I see his back as he goes onward

I follow, drawn ‘forward,’ too:

(That which is backwards is forwards now.)

I caught him up – and caught up we two were one

A cloud, he disappears; I am on my own, but not alone

I turn not back again nor even turn around   

Pressing onward I went where he went

Following - if I could have seen him, but I couldn’t

And it was so and as it should be, though I didn’t know

Before me is a wood, and the sun shines around its edges

Earthly – the first few rows of trees seem brightly lit 

Invitingly – but they are full of their own light

I move – with arms outstretched I run toward them

Ever hopeful winged in delight, and barefoot free

Yet, made of hollow shells, dry branches do not greet me  

I follow on – I do not stay, I pass right through them

As though they were not there

Wood-caged people they are grounded in Earth.

In their own light, the trees not caught up, melt away.

Passed through them, I am out on the Other Side, alive

For them, I am sad: misunderstood I am all alone

For this lack of losing all how much is lost.

                                      *

( - from THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND: Vol. One)