Come Say Hello Before I Go

I Wonder Why

I wonder why
There are tickets to be given
And roads to cross
Lights to change
And people to die
I wonder why
I wonder why

There are people who love
And people who hate
And people to “tolerate”
I wonder why
I wonder why

Millions of flowers fall
As we do after our call
But they have lived
In great service
And I cry
I wonder why
I wonder why

Millions of leaves
Dance in the wind
As they dry
G-d gives us so much
To do with our minds
And still I cry
I wonder why
I wonder why

How limited my mind must be
Painting, writing, trying
to see
As shapes move by
G-d’s gifts are great
Still I cry
I wonder why
I wonder why

My Son

In a living waking dream
I saw my son.
The flower kissed his forehead
And the greatest Love was given
As all tears at once undone
And the world sat in peace and awe.
For all the pain it had released
Was gone at once by one small
Boy
Whose constant love dissolved all
Hurt.

At Stage Eighty-Eight

And when I feel sad
I pay homage to my memories
And hear the wind drawing
spacious caverns
And circles around the earth,
And watch Thelma draw forms
Of the sun and the sea and
Tastes that mean much to me.

At the stage eighty-eight
What will the winter season be?
Will one Reality endure
To escape the bullets of man
And time to paint with me?
Yes. There is always time to create,
Even at stage eighty-eight.

To A Bird’s Single Note

What heart can do
without a brush

If even the brush
of feathers be;

What bird can do
without a voice

If even sounds
were unknown to me.

If even silence
chose the tone –

If even one feeling
might have grown

Let thy beat through
silence sing –
Silence make the
silence sing.

O bird, if sound
was known to heart,

To heart would be no
deeper tone

Than your single note alone.

(5-27-38)

Walk Gently

Walk gently on the Earth
For you are stepping
Over many dreams
A million hands
And hearts and minds
And hopes it seems

Walk gently on the Earth
For we are next
In Hashem’s greater line
And we will kiss the roots
Of Iris as she drinks
The sunlit wine

Walk gently on the Earth
It is loaned to us
As yours and mine
Walk gently on the Earth
For you are stepping
Over many dreams
And hearts and minds
And loves and tears
It seems

I Dream Of A Village

I dream of a village
where skies live soft,
are held in children’s hands
where your earth is not wet
with tears and brown with blood.
And babies walk with songs,
smile to each, the name Nicole.
The color, the good, the dead,
where no babe’s parent
knows of now called “need,”
and hands reach to share
all planting, all house, all seed.

I dream now no wars were,
no pillage, no death done,
no thinking man unlives, unloves, unkind.
I dream of the Mountain of caring
I cannot find.

I dream of the village
where those destroyed
are needed by warrant based
like Kennedys and King
will come again to live and sing
with the babes in master songs
in G-d’s own atmosphere,
and walk the gentle hills
of love, to all the trees,
and talk again to us
of all the wondrous things
each great heart sees.
I dreamed all of these, and more,
But dreams must wait
for an open door,
but my dream can find
no open door.
So I will wait for
time and more.
I will wait for time
and more.

Millie

You, whose beauty glows
behind your face,
I see a river of eternal grace
Whose reflections from the
glowing sun
Makes of life a greater living place.
Birds and fish and other
living things
Have the flow of song and truth
your presence brings.
How fortunate the Bird* by leave
returned
And in your thoughts and trust
she sings!

*Tabella (Thelma)

December 2004

To The Floating Leaf

Behold! The wonders in the
everlasting mind.
Wonder is where wonder
can its image find;
The leaves that linger in
the air,
They, too, whisper wisdom, dance
before they die;
Their riches wither, too, beyond
the moment’s touch,
Their bodies bend, as ours,
before the final lurch.
Behold! We are all bound
to one another,
Leaf to limb, limb to trunk,
trunk to mind.
When, then, will you more
beauty find?

To Mr. Rat And Fred

Along one redwood
under gentle green arms
an arrangement of
cradling stones Mr. Rat stays
in unsharing silent dreams
from a gentle life
to a gentle soul
it seems
it seems

Every afternoon at three
a loving arm of light
across the warming
silent stones beams
another light – touches Fred
to make of sickness and hope
different living dreams
We are part of this
it seems
it seems

Now Fred has joined
his sleeping friend
both to share their
everlasting dreams

A part of this is
the living hope
the arm of light
the warming stones
the silent, final dreams
the final gentle breath
it seems
it seems

When I looked into Fred’s eye
when I looked into Bob’s eye
I saw
my eye
my pain
my pleasure
my gentleness
my loss
my will to live
my fears
my gentle death

We are all one eye
one face
one pain
one pleasure
within the circle of life
One feeling of time
in His energy sublime

This eye that died
This eye that smiled
This eye in pain
lives in hidden grace again
it seems
it seems