University

The Ivy in the gardens at college

growing in the planters entwined within

sway with the hems of the pedestrians

walking side by side or across the lawns

the music that it makes how when and then

my thoughts as they travel forward again

go back to the same pair of legs and arms

carrying books in the shade of time

where as before they return and assess

the rituals of education less

than the education itself and past

sacrifices that are nothing but blessed

whatever it cost or came without

wanting, it makes me who I am and Not.

A Flower like a Circle

the flower is a circle made of truth

woven in the leaf parchment alphabet

by an abstract expression of its worth

when beauty was ineffable at first

and stood as itself the pattern of earth

spun from the same light fiber loom like wool

but softer far softer than soft can touch

drawn from liquid crystal dewdrops of dew

and sifted through the wooden green iris

with which light sees itself in its image

beauty is an after-thought adage

the flower is the answer in the dark

when nothing can be seen but the darkness.

SOUL MYSTERY

string of the moment and pearl of the past

these are the beautiful things that I have

signs of the letters brought to inhabit

the power, the patent, the attachment

linked across two objects of their beauty

which has for its purpose design and joy

movement that is tranquil and rests at will

along the outlines of the roses

invisible to themselves to behold

of lovely form for everybody else

alone in the absence of the other

yet the River of Time that traverses

the shore of my greatest mystery, soul,

destined before the winds begin to blow.