Beneath The Cloisters

Today I saw a sight
More exquisite than Man-hattan,
A gift of time
And place
And quiet
And God:

There were four bands of Nature
Set before me in dual dimension,
Distinct in depth
Yet same in stratification:

A coarse and weathered stone wall
Not twenty feet away;

A scarified river face,
Changing texture for current and breeze;

A mantle of tree-covered cliffs
Thick in fall plumage;

And crowning all these,
The sky
In soft hazy blue
Stretched wide in swaths
Of cream-spread clouds.

Four horizons
Met in the moment,
Created a layered quartet
Of balance and peace,
One organic architecture
That only I did see.

A poem from New York ...

A few lines composed upon sketching the dingy view from my chair and table in the basement laundry while waiting for my shirts to dry on the evening of 14 July, 2010

(20 Dongan Place, New York, New York)

I can see the sweat
In the Gold Bond walls
Shored thick in Mexican labor;
Great stacks of yellow pound cake
Sloppily set in greasy guilt revealed!

Science of Soul

Amidst the realms
of mortal soul,
betwixt the helms
of lust and goal,

Burns bright a flame,
unquench'd, undimm'd:
an essence tame,
of purity limn'd.

And e'en the least
of mankind made,
after the beast
or lost and stray'd,

May feel the flame,
in sating sign,
of Him whose name
doth fore'er shine.

For by burn'd breast,
in witness giv'n,
the mind is blest
of God in heav'n,

To know and see
with untrain'd eye,
the breadth of science,
the width of why.

. . . .

scientiaspirituanimo

Tonight Your Face

Tonight your face
looking at mine
like a glimpse of moonlight
shone through the trees
of my hardened soul;

And by your grace
in nick of time,
though fears posed to affright,
pure love did cease
painful years of dole;

So shall your place
once crossed the line
giv’n last of mortal might
with God increase,
our eternal goal.

… amor vincit omnia …

Another favorite poem

Kubla Khan
or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge