Welcome

All Reality is a Surface

All reality is a surface,

A surface behind which nothing lies,

Yet one whose immaturity is betrayed

By the way we desperately insist on its independence.

What remains is but a remainder,

Though what it survives, it had never accompanied.

There is no above or beyond, only because.

Disbelief

Up against the walls of disbelief,

The soul, demanding, “Is this it?”

Longs for some word or notion

Or some philosophical sleight of hand

Or else conjures up a memory or a face

Whose radiance allows it to impersonate the divine.

The soul is not a body—but not quite a soul.

God is where desire is not. 

Nature is a miracle, eternity an instant.

Hope becomes prayer, and love, itself. 

Adrian Ma is a writer and philosopher based in Toronto, Canada. 

Trees and Boards 

Not long ago I was a magnificent tree,

reaching for the sun and the eternal presence of God. 

Then I was felled, in order to be used for the convenience of humanity. 

Now, a pile of boards in a rack in the corner of a woodworker’s shop,

I rest.

When you make use of me, 

will you strive to recreate the beauty and magnificence of the tree I once was, 

by paying attention to the shape of my lines, my colors, and the flow of life within me?

arranging my now separate pieces such that they provide a brief glimpse of that which i once was, 

and which animates us all?

Hal Taylor is a biologist/chemist with a Bachelor of Science degree from Kansas State University. Hal never worked a hot second as a biologist, although he was quite a good student with a 3.7 GPA. Hal went directly into electrical engineering and ended up the manager of electrical engineering at Universal Dynamics in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Come Friends, Come

I don’t recognize myself

Have I changed this much?

Have I drifted so far?

From love, compassion, sincerity

True love

The one for whom 

I’ve dedicated my life

For whom I’ve written songs

That sublime existence, love

On the strings of my guitar

In the spring of my art

I’m returning

To find myself once more

Come, friends, come

Find no fault

On the path of love, 

On the path of affection

Let’s drink until dawn

Through music, meditation, and writing, Izzet Karaağaçlı creates spaces for inner awareness, creativity, and authentic self-expression. His work is not about teaching or fixing people, but about helping them reconnect with their own voice, rhythm, and inner truth. Through his books, music, creativity workshops and meditative work, Izzet invites people into a more honest, peaceful, and compassionate relationship with themselves. 

Making Sense of Sunday

I sit cross-legged in the morning light.
 

Dust dances, flitting
now here, now there.

I draw in my knees and drowse,
drift into a smudge of sounds,
 

A faraway lilt lifted in praise,
prayers bobbing aloft, loaded with hope,
the burble of a hymn,
the crescendo of a chorus.

Fuzzy words

                    —amidst stabs of static,

familiar voices begin to fray

Sounds smear 

into sound.
 

Signal cut.

A mad whirring of wheels
twisting and turning,

now here, now there,
 

hoping to hear a clear voice
amid the crackle of the ether.

Navdeep Mandair is an emerging writer from Coventry, UK. He is currently working on a literary speculative novel.

Saudade 

Your house stands silent among its neighbors,

one guard in a perfect, patterned platoon,

their postures cold in their allocated labor. 

A little boy used to walk five days a week

by your house toward his school at the end of the street,

his small sprightly steps as if turning the tube 

on a music box playing a soon-routine tune

that would waft from your windows to waken the dawn

and tickle the thrushes and sparrows with song.

Perhaps you remember that little boy walking,

that air you rehearsed every night in your dreaming,

that tune which was born with many a sibling,

with some of the sisters and others of brothers,

bubbling their babbling and rumbling their running,

heaping that hearth with delight for the warming.

Now the boy’s grown big, a girl walks his path,

but to her your home is an abode like any other,

Four straight limbs with a uniform hat.

I only wonder what happened,

why your instrument lies trapped in time. 

I would sing for you, if I could. 

Eshan Dabak, a lawyer by day, keeps himself out of trouble with classical music, distance running, and of course poetry. He hails from Plano, Texas, though home for him is wherever he can find a thoughtful friend and meaningful connection. His work has appeared in the Curator.

The Voice in the Envelope

It waited in my bedside drawer,

till now

to hear your voice again.

I opened the envelope,

the anniversary card
blue ink --

TO THE WOMAN

WHO MAKES

MY LIFE AMAZING

“Hi, my Lily, Bagu!

What a wonderful, exciting, rich life

you have given me

over the last four decades!

We have an amazing life,

filled with joy,

immeasurable blessings,

all because

you endlessly ignite

the engine of

curiosity,

challenge,

and fun!

Come on, baby!
 

The path of our ‘Third-Life’

is bright—

and no question—

you will make it

beautifully,

fulfilling,

and exciting!
 

I love you so much,

Your Gorilla.”

I sat alone beside the empty chair,

I closed the card

with both hands.

The Gift
 

We were given a sprout of life,

in exchange for the harvest.

After thirteen full moons,

the little one whispered a first word,

Awe—

Through the summer garden,

the morning sun,

dew soaked my feet—
the weight

of his trust.

His brown eyes 

wide open,

meeting a monarch for the first time—

wings flitting,

drawing nectar

from the purple butterfly bush.

He murmured again, 

Awe—

reaching his little hand

toward the sky.

I tried to remember

his name—

Perhaps Little Adam,

laughing beneath golden light,

or Little Siddhartha,

sitting in joy beneath the rose-apple tree.

Born in Japan, Yuko Mulugetta spent her professional life in the U.S. as a statistician. Married for over forty years to the late Dr. Mulugetta of Ethiopia, she carries forward his faith in love, trust, and compassion. After loss, she returned to meditation, discovering poetry bridging East, West, and Africa. 

A Red Framing

A blade piercing

through the heart –  

lodged 

where dreams

never got to breathe

on their own,

where shame

of not doing what one

set out to do in life

springs untamed.

The blood gushing out.

I wish I could bleed

like clouds rain

till the end of their fill.

I shall paint, 

red clouds of pain, 

on an indigo dark sky – 

at least 

I would make a painting

out of my unquenched ache. 

I will scream in color,

what my voice can’t yell – 

a feeling of red,

not of anger, 

but of some sort of

muffled disappointment,

a red that turns putrid

before it can spill out.

A Painted Retreat

She would gladly retreat

into a painting,

and sit there by herself – 

the river ever moving,

the flowers ever blooming,

the sky ever changing

in tones of blue; 

a lost road, 

a mountain peak, 

a remote cabin – 

she won’t need anything more. 

Yet, there is pain 

in all that bucolic refuge – 

not in what is,

but in what is not – 

something divine in nature

that cannot be found 

in the oneness with God alone,

a love for another

that her soul longs 

to experience

in her life 

within the material world.

Like Ochre 

She is a combination of

rattled, saddened, and aware

(in a word that doesn’t exist) 

of the inevitability of passing

into redundant existence – 

too aged to fulfill

the communal need

for meaningful contribution. 

And perhaps, 

that is not the deepest sting, 

but rather turning irrelevant

before she could have lived

social relevance.

A feeling like ochre 

that hurts and stains – 

in a blurry 

downward emotional drift – 

the ochre of sand

as it slips through her fingers,

into the hourglass,

grain over grain.

Once tawny settles in,

it accrues,

widening its base 

with each year lost,

leaving behind

emptiness and mayhem.

In a world that continuously

shrinks in scope,

can she still find

a little bit of cadmium yellow

on infinity blue?

Cleopatra Sorina Iliescu grew up under an oppressive communist regime in Romania. She began writing poetry at the age of eight and developed her voice in private solitude, which shaped a restrained and delicate poetic expression. Her current series of sixty poems, Cadmium Yellow on Infinity Blue, approaches life experiences through painting. Color, pattern, brushstroke, and image form a backdrop for rendering layered thoughts and emotions such as existential unease, longing, and grief. 

The Tending

I attend reality and ask its everness.

We can collaborate in the face of far.

I participate in fearlessness.

We think each other. Are you honest?

I will my thinking deep into a star.

I attend reality and ask its everness.

Does a moment form itself unending?

I am above! Below beckons slowly.

I participate in fearlessness.

In right and wrong, where lives truth?

A lie quickens its rotted moldings.

I attend reality and ask its everness.

Dare we fight this slant pretending?

I come so far undone. I seek knowing

and, seeking, participate by fearing less.

Transformation keeps. I confess.

My doings make a widened world, unbarred.

I participate in fearlessness.
 

Resurrecting

Find the intermediary

earthen places where 

there is no life. Dig.

Let the fig tree suffer

decay. Unfold. Yes, 

what did you find?

There’s home outlasting

body every minute.

Glimpse it around 

moving things. 

Be sure to drink

from springs that live

in unmarked rings

of subterranean

girth. You might even

find birth in the mines.

But wait: what stone

secretly outwaits death?

Is this a test? Crack 

the brazen outer edge

of simple geodes; oh

what a heaven. What 

simple unearthing.
 

As the Dogwoods Bloom

Be free, the morning said.

You are far mightier than body.

I walked to the sounds of a child

in the forest. Young one, I said,

where have you gone? To school?

You certainly aren’t home.

Freshness escaped me briefly.

I hardly heard the dogwood bloom.

Life can ennoble you. Live it

through. That’s what I saw

written in the bark and bouncing

over the dew. But live awake,

that is the rule. I got ready 

and set off for the soonest hour

that asks me ever to be new.

by Fire

Hey, word. It’s not easy

for you to be heard, really.

We use you like atoms —

components of meaning.

What excess do you conceal?

Unnerved, word. When you

form so deep within me,

collecting sounds prepared

in unconscious being. 

What word can I feel?

Frightened, word. The calamity 

of overuse chit chats you

into abuse, and I 

name your silence Truth.

What word is most real?

Adeline Lyons lives in New York. She works in community development, and is also an editor and actress. Her work can be found in The Hooghly Review, Spark to Flame Journal, and Borderless Journal. 

Mons Mysterium: The Summit Beyond Silence

The All-pervasive Supreme Divinity condensed

       To Freezing Stillness

Circumambulating in hypoxic altitudes

        Eighteen thousand five hundred feet

        Brutal Blessings for some

Physically challenging — yet

        Peaceful Parikrama

Magnetic confluence of multiple Faiths

        Harmony of Holy Hearts

Innumerable are the Saints and Sages

        Whose Feet caressed the Boulders

        With Your Graceful Presence

Enraptured and Transfixed

        With Ineffable Wonder

Sapiens, Equines, and Canines

        Soaking in the Solitude of Satori

Comforts and needs minimized

        Purity — internal over external

You remain Tranquil - Achala

        Rain or Shine

        Summer or Winter

        Pilgrims or None

Immersed in Your beatific Transcendence

        Oblivious to Sleep, Food, Place, or Time

        Akin to Avadhutā

Holy Ash: White and Cold

        With Gauri in Emerald Green

Kailash — solidified Samadhi

        Manasarovar — liquefied Kailash

Awe-struck and Speechless

        From Kensho to Kaivalya

        The Experiential Bliss remains!

Dr. Viswanathan Rajagopalan is an Associate Professor and publishes his research on integrative medicine. He has authored the spiritual poetry book Naan and also in spiritual magazines. A lifelong spiritual practitioner, speaker, and traveler to sacred sites, his sessions bridge spiritual reasoning, selfless action, meditative devotion, and philosophical inquiry. 

I enjoy late nights

when no one's up

The silent feeling

when the moon's out

I don't know

when I became so fond

of the night

Nothing manmade

Just silence and nighttime

Tyriq Robinson is a writer, poet, and student based in Washington, DC. 

Resurrected

I find myself attracted to the thickness of the woods as I drive home. The tall spring trunks shiny 

and wet. They bring me joy. The multitude of pine trees arranged in nature’s order bring me peace I find no where else today. The tree knows what it is, accepting itself as a growing legacy, a counterpart to creation. It exists humbly and wildly. It does not beg to make itself more than it is. It does not curve its body left or right, or arrange its’ branch to be more pleasing to the log beside it. It neither hunches over ashamed of its’ great length or sags its’ branches around its’ broad trunk afraid to be seen. A tree is a tree existing purely from the seed it sprang from, nurtured by the provisions of life itself. 

I find enjoyment in trees because unlike them I resist who I am at every moment, always looking to mirrors to tell me who I am. In the eyes of people I search for myself wondering why my bend is so odd, my branch so crooked, my bark so thin. 

Like the ugly duckling, I search for my broad, my nest, my root, my kin. As a young child I was like the tree, branching forth in green in leaf, unafraid of my place in the world. My color, size and shape were of no question to me. I was the grass, the rock, the root, a tree.

And so it is I find myself wanting to stop and venture in alone. This world seems cold and lonely today, and I am tired of bending my branches to hide. For if I am a pine it seems much better to be a maple. If I am in woods it would seem much better to sit high in a field with sunlight. I have spent much time wishing I were a different tree. Carving into myself, surgically reconstructing the natural rhythm of my own soul. Never quite right for myself, I question my action and inaction endlessly, trying to reconstruct the sacred self, I have twisted and turned in ways that are unnatural, ill-suited, uncomfortable.

It starts when we are tender and green, not far from the soil. “Turn this way my dear, your bark looks a bit pale, should have a bit more color I think. What an odd looking leaf you have growing there, well, we’ll just pluck it off so no one will see. She’s a bit quiet that one, never hear the wind blow much through her branches . . . Why look at his trunk it's’ so wide! He’s going to take up so much space we’ll all be cramped!

And look at that one over there, so odd isn’t she? She has that twist in her belly and goodness is she spindly . . . ” 

Unlike the tree in the wild we are inspected, arranged and corrected until we no longer 

resemble the whole trunks we were meant to be. Bitten off at our own branches, we sulk silently, 

making due with un-stretched limbs and quiet leaves. It will be in quiet places and in voices 

that seek same solace that we may begin to know again who we may be. Unhurried we could 

stretch a branch or two. Given water. . . we could renew one root. Given love, the clean, pure,

unfettered kind, we could breathe new life into wilted leaves and cumbersome trunks. 

The world needs more trees . . . healthy and vibrant and growing into the majesty each

one was meant to be.

Cut down too early, we can repair the damage. Nailed and driven into, we can be resurrected.

Soil, sun, water await, spirit enters willingly. Places prepared, wholeness will be provided.

Centered like a tree 

which breaks forth with bony prominence

I could return.

Rooted deep in well fed soil 

I stretch my limbs out to the sky.

Only me, 

who bursts forth 

from scrap to seedling 

will I be, 

like I was in the beginning. 

A map of charted water,

pre-destined to swing and bow to winds delight.

Showing palms of green and golden, 

brushing sunlight past to other branches, 

that touch my tip, that I will share. 

Rooted firmly in the soil I can stand

Surrounded by life’s burst of tender seeds, 

and they will spring up all around me . . .

and that is good

and new 

and fresh.

To please the wind we sway to gentle music,

I will know just who I am.

Donna Secour is an artist living on the south coast of Massachusetts. She tries her best to balance her time between her art studio and her work as a psychiatric nurse. In the space she finds in between, she finds sanity in writing in her journals. Her poetry has been published in Blue Heron Review,, and her artwork has been included in the Manhattan International Arts online exhibit, “The Healing Power of Art.” 

A Sufi Star Jump

I am not like the younger among you —
I am a distant star in the motion of emptiness.
I burn up as if a meteorite;
I weep as a sailor without his ship.

Pain comes not from my heart,
but from the absence of a second;
I need no shahada —
I am a star in His singleness.

A beacon of the space between the sun and moon —
this is the fullness of devotion;
a star beyond itself.

Adam Robinson is an emerging poet and short story writer from the UK whose work focuses primarily upon the intersection of science and spirituality. 

An Atheist Reflects Upon the Purpose of His Existence

The Atheist lay on his deathbed and on the point of eternal oblivion, in a Godless and random universe, a lucid vision surfaced from within the depths of his mind. It came from a primordial place, a place which had been long forgotten and it was here, at the very beginning, as fate would have it, when memory and perception emerged, enabling the mystery of his consciousness to flash into life, that he lay listening, enraptured, to the rhythmically sibilant pounding of a thick and warm, red-rich liquid pumped into him, with its satisfyingly sweet and sugary rush. He was bathed in a miraculous and fecund life-force, which was holding him secure and safe from all harm, protecting him within the walls of a powerful muscular cavity. It was a place of peaceful bliss, of blessed beatitude, of rapturous and joyous awe. 

Drifting in and out of the preternatural borderlands between wakefulness and sleep, he could sense an irresistible and overwhelming, almost crushing, physical presence, before he sank into a deep and languorous, torpid sleep, like drowning in  a darkly unfathomable ocean. He was dreaming of the myriads of shifting shapes, with colours that seemed like they might have been sounds and there were sounds that might have been colours. Everything kept changing, becoming interchangeable and all mixed up. It was a great confusion of scintillating and shimmering colours, weird shapes, and haunting eerie sounds, which seemed like distant echoes. There were other times when he had clear and coherent, weirdly evocative dreams, which might repeat themselves later, and in different ways, but in essence were always the same.

When he was not sleeping and dreaming, he would listen, enraptured and spell-bound, to the cryptic words of a song-like, lyrical speech, of a poetical language, spoken softly to him. Sometimes he could hear, very faintly, the speech-sounds of those nearby, who might come and go, according to their own purposes and desires.

When he was still and resting, he would sense a pulsing beat, a musical and mellifluous, harmonious, rhythmic heartbeat, coming from deep within his being,  flooding his mind with seraphical raptures. There were other times, when the sound was not rhythmical, but random and spasmodic, loud, and close by, or sometimes faint, as if from some far-off place. When it was like this, with its accompanying melancholia and feelings of anxious confusion, he longed for the quiet and dark serenity of his nightly slumbers, where he could envelop himself in the gentle movements of a slow regular breathing, while listening to the susurrating sound which surrounded him, quietly thrilling him, coming from the beating of a pulsating heart. 

But this ecstasy was not to last. He had become swollen and agile and was becoming too large for this nurturing cavity. The appointed time came, decided by fate, when he was harrowingly and abruptly forced out of this place of bliss, this sanguinary heaven, mercilessly and relentlessly, by the great contractile muscles surrounding him, and after a titanic struggle, accompanied by the sound of loud wailing and high-pitched, excruciating cries, he emerged suddenly and violently, into a bright, harshly lit and cold, sterile place, with its echoing voices and weird iodic odour. That vast and limitless space, this outer world, which seemed to him like a fearful void of endless nothingness, into which he had been cast. He looked into the staring eyes of those gathered around him, those searching and inquisitive eyes, bright with wonder, carefully examining him for any possible imperfections or deviations from an arbitrary norm.

Held up high by his feet, like a wet dead fish and with a piercing primal scream and desperate gasp for breath, cold fresh air was forced into his flaccid lungs, inflating them for the first time, like a pair of pink spongy balloons, amid the clattering and clinking of the cruel and blood-splattered silver instruments that had so remorselessly torn his incipient body, wailing piteously, from that beauteous place. He was now bereft forever from the all-encompassing, all-embracing love that had been given to him so freely. With one last evil cut he was severed, with a terrifying finality, from the coiling translucent tube that was his pulsating lifeline, brutally cleaved and disconnected. He was now free, an island unto himself, free to taste his first bitter taste of loneliness. He was just one among many, wounded in mind and indelibly scarred by this expulsion, this harrowing and traumatic struggle .       

Although he was cruelly cut free, he was kept warm and close, his hunger and thirst periodically satisfied by a sweet and rich creamy liquid that he had a powerful instinct to suck into his stomach. When not suckling, he was swaddled in soft and silken blankets and lovingly laid to rest in a special place, in a small cradle, in a tiny room, with walls coloured like a sunlit azure sky, which was filled with drifting clouds, like bulbous puffs of white smoke. It was here, in this diminutive room, that he would listen, in enraptured awe, to simple songs of sweet innocence and gently rocked into profound slumbers.

But this wider world, into which he had been cast, by the imponderable vagaries of fickle fate, grew more and more insistent and he was taught to make the sounds that were the naming of things, people, and feelings, good or bad. To make the proper connections between words and other words, between ideas and other ideas. Thus, he had been given the means to understand some miniscule part of the emerging reality of this world, as it was revealed to him, in all its wonderous mystery, day by day.

When he had acquired some simple words and suitable habits, there came a time, an auspicious time, when he was taken to a strange place, a special place, away from his home with its comforts and comforting familiarities. Thrust together, with others just like him, in the chilly morning air and bright Autumn sunshine, as he would remember it and would never forget it, as he watched with deep dismay and unforgettable unhappiness, of being abandoned, being left in that intimidating place, with its polished echoing corridors and inhabited by smiling strangers. It was a place where knowledge was gently coaxed into as yet unadulterated and uncorrupted minds; a place of many and varied rituals and inscrutable mysteries. Mysteries that he would have to learn to decipher and analyse, disfiguring the awe and wonder he was gifted with at the emergence of his conscious mind. Some were frightened and wailing pitifully, some stoically suffering in silence, hiding their fears, while others seemed unconcerned and indifferent, in this disconcerting place he was left at, on that fateful day.

Thus, he began another part of his journey, a fearful journey, a journey of unknown dangers and insoluble puzzles, often losing his way and wandering aimlessly in dark and endless forests of mystery, encountering others like him, beguiling him with their evil wisdom. These were often desperate and hopeless times when the way seemed irretrievably lost. 

So, he continued his journey, through half-remembered places and half-remembered dreams, through changeable states of mood and mind. He was shown how to acquire more and more knowledge and ideas: to dismantle things, to unlock their hidden secrets. He was taught to create mathematical order; to make sense of the chaos of his experience.

So, it came to pass, that he was once driven by fate, to conquer a giant, snow covered mountain, though it might just have been a terrible dream. In this swirling and tumultuous dream, he had to ascend a mountain, held sacred by the superstitious, which was riddled with sheer rocky outcrops and hidden gullies and the summit, his elusive and final destination, being covered in opaque storm clouds, with loud thunder and flashes of lightning. The ascent seemed impossible at times, the way ahead obscured and temporarily losing all hope and with shameful pusillanimity, he took refuge from the world, with those who were also fighting the encroaching dark and menacing spectres of despair, despondency, and depression. In the end, after conquering the snowy mountain of his dreamscape, did he emerge into the bright and warm, sunny uplands of a new Spring, his hope and purpose restored. 

Later, and at a time determined by fate, he was blessed with union with another and in their mutual passion, their sweating bodies becoming as one, his metamorphic journey had reached its completion and conclusion. Another journey into a dangerous future had begun; another chemical code of life, another throw of the dice, by inscrutable fate.

This new precious presence, this new life, emerging into the world, like a fat and greasy, pink sausage, being utterly helpless, had to be nurtured and lovingly revered, like a god. Swiftly and with great subtlety, it made its journey into its conscious sense of being and becoming, shaped by a different, ever more dangerous world. Thus, the biological imperative has been accomplished and with ever decreasing pleasures and a frail and failing body, the fearful darkness loomed on the horizon of his clouding mind, when he would finally relinquish his hold over the forces of life and sink into the eternal silence of death. 

Steve Birch was born in England but grew up in South Africa. He came to live in England as an adult and has lived there ever since. He went to Essex University from 1980 until 1983, where he gained a degree in History. He has been writing for about four years. 

Direction

A quiet spark begins to grow

New knowledge

changes how we see

past shadows

A stronger voice 

begins direction

for tomorrow

LaToya Young is a writer, poet, and student based in Washington, DC. 

When We Were Stars

I whisper into the night

Soft as a breath drifting through galaxies

Is it possible we chose each other 

Long before the world began

When all we were was the 

Shimmer of two newborn stars

Laughing in heaven

Pure light and curiosity

Wondering what it would be like 

To fall into bodies

To forget

To find each other again in 

The long cosmic game of remembering

We giggled about the silliest things

How humans worry,

How they cling,

How they build entire lives 

Around questions

They already know the answers to

We laughed and wondered,

Will we recognize each other

Will we remember

Will we look up and feel the pull of 

Our own starlight calling us home

And the stars—our elders, our witnesses—

leaned close and whispered:

Our little darlings… you have never once been apart.

Time is the illusion.

Distance is the dream.

Love is the thread that never breaks.

Down here, we twinkle through the veil,

Two sparks fumbling through gravity,

Trying to walk each other home

The human collective spins around us—

Sweet and serious, searching and forgetting

Forgetting and remembering—

Star seeds and flame trees, 

Old souls in new bodies,

Always falling forward into ecstasy, 

Into union, into Truth

We knew from the beginning:

We were never lost

We were never separate

We were never not each other’s. 

Ashley Dwight is a writer, clinician, and MSW whose work explores trauma, healing, and awakening. Drawing from lived experience and a background in emergency services, her poetry speaks to resilience, truth, and transformation. She writes for those finding their way back to themselves. She lives in Colorado. 

Daybreak

A Poem From God

God made the most beautiful poem 

For me today: bringing up the shimmering light

With the cool clear air and the first birds

And the red sun shouldering the horizon-hill.

I was caught between the milk and the morning mail,

Between the bed of fire and the bed of flowers,

Between weary Hope and Sorrow’s mighty Arm,

When the poem from God came streaming up the sky.

The Fount of all words has no need for words,

All colours and music are His:

He seemed to hold His breath, and then He blew

A most majestic chord across the sky

That swelled and melted into all the colours

That ever were, and some that never were:

As He might loose a thousand sacred singers

And send them chanting through the fields of praise.

I walked in the house and out of the house,

I sat and poked and pondered,

As the day waxed full and ravelled down to dark;

Until at last I knew a thing, and was glad to know it:

That no poem could be more beautiful and true

(More lovely in its truth, more truthful in its beauty)

Than the poem God made for me today –

Except the one he’ll make for me tomorrow.

*

Postscript

Every peaceful thought, every kind emotion, every generous act, is an inkling, a clue, a cleaving, towards the Spiritual Centre – the real centre of the Real Universe.

Nick Hayward took a BA in English from Queen's University, Belfast. He worked mainly in the City of London. Retired to the Loire Valley in France, he composed poetry and prose reflections to help clarify his spiritual beliefs. He hopes to bring out a selection of his work in book form, and is looking for a suitable publisher. He now lives in West Cumbria, UK, with his beloved standard poodle, Jasper.