LAND OF MY FATHERS
The red dust and the gray phantom heat haze
The quivering horizon elusive
Plains extending forever and ever
This is the country my heart's been lost to
The slow steady pace, the clear steady gaze
Human friendliness sharing the silence
This is the spirit abroad in the men
This great continent -land of my fathers
Corellas, magnolia-like deck the trees
Full feasted, fat on crops of the farmers
Water lilies float on billabong's curve
Black men and white men bathe in the shallows
Horsemen dusty, return tired but content
Well pleased that the mustering's now over
Knowing although this day's effort is spent,
New work demands new effort tomorrow
Lull of spirit 'neath verandah at night
Mystical brightness of stars hanging near,
Most priceless this, the fine gift of the night
To the humans who wish to observe it.
Sleepily, I gaze at the cradle of heaven
With the stars swinging and lilting in their rhythm
I feel safe in the flow of the World Mother's tide
Secure in the One-ness that skies all symbolise
This is the mystic world where the gods may not hide
But are here known, in the night land of my fathers.
Of a great brooding Presence, the wilderness speaks
Telling fragments of human life's epic story
Beguiling, enticing with its consummate skill
Haunting, vague hinting at future secrets there still
Entwining both my heart and my mind with this land
This wonderful land, great and good of my fathers.
LET ME DIE NOW
Fain would I sleep now
And dream of soul's delights
And lands of calm serenity
And gentle days and nights
Fain would I leave now
My body stark and cold
To dream of innocent gladness
I knew when six years old
Fain would I beg you...leave me
And let my eyelids close
Let me slip away to freedom
On soul wings of Great Repose.
LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED
Let not your heart be troubled ...
Let not your own Light go out ...
Let not the waters of sorrow
Bring floods to endanger your Life.
Bring a Peace to the heart's love...
Give your Love to your fellows...
Bring Beauty to all that you do...
Goodness gives hope for the morrow!
LIFE WAVES
It comes in waves ...
Those long, dark days
When oppressed by all and nothing
My spirit, burdened, sinks and dims
My heart feels heavy, beating slowly
My whole life seems sombre, drear and lowly.
Love comes in waves...
Those care-free days
When life all seems joy and laughter
My spirit lightly takes its flight
All my fears are banished out of sight
And my heart expands in love's sheer delight.
Life comes in waves...
Those action days
Adventures come and pass again
Nothing ceases the joys and pain
My spirit's mood now seeks to regain
Composure, ebb and flow, free of the strain
Waves of life support my soul
Gentle waves of calmer days
Then lull, the calm, the gathering power
Brings waves increasing every hour
Before crescendo, storm and blast ... then Cease...
I rest in gentler mood at last.
LIVING MY LIFE TO THE FULL
Living and loving and thinking and feeling
Sighing and crying and laughing and smiling
Sitting and walking and making and breaking
Living my life to the full.
Waking and sleeping and musing and dreaming
Acting, reacting, and singing and talking
Running and dancing and skating and racing
Living my life to the full.
Swimming and diving and flying and gliding
Relaxing, reading and writing and spinning
Knitting, embroidering, sewing and ironing
Living my life to the full.
Dreaming and sighing, and climbing and sliding,
Hiking, travelling and in one place residing,
Mending and weaving and golfing and listening
Living my life to the full.
Cooking and baking, and eating and drinking,
Washing and scrubbing and cleaning and making,
Gardening, weeding and tidying and taking
Living my life to the full.
Giving, receiving, exchanging and greeting,
Hosting and visiting, wishing and wanting,
Shopping and storing and spending and saving,
Living my life to the full.
Growing and collecting, drying and dyeing,
Pressing and pasting and sketching and drawing,
Painting and sculpting and moulding and crafting
Living my life to the full.
Driving and yachting, boating , and exploring
Hunting and fishing and carving and pruning,
Ski-ing and filming and watching and drafting
Living my life to the full.
Working and resting, and striving and praying
Coughing and sighing and bending and straightening
Hoping and helping, phoning, organising
Living my life to the full.
Dancing and studying, healing and helping
Teaching, training for good values sustaining
Researching, promoting health habits gaining
Painting and writing and in life delighting
I feel that I've lived my life to the full.
LIVING UNITY
A planet cried -
And worlds, light years away, responded with a shiver or a sigh depending on their sympathies
A Sun bursts new life -
And worlds millenniums away in time received, in time, more light and energy
A constellation - urgent to develop, impatient to move on in its growth sent forth new ripples of creative waves to the universal shores
A mineral once created -
Transferred through time becomes earth substance - cycled into plant material and tree - its transferred atoms then appear in beast then man- this is our life history.
An animal lives free -
In the world of his natural element, is trapped and killed by man and all creatures know the deed is done
Tiny atoms- worlds in miniature
Respond move and experience their pattern and verify life's one-ness which we find great difficulty in understanding or to see
A man knows its godhead-
And immediately all his brethren whoe'er they be - are receivers of his truth and in time enlightened they also will be set free
Life's journey seems unending-
And confused or ordered we cannot see
But if the unity is True, then it's up to me and you
Need of simple care and do as much we're able
So that then mineral plant and tree
Bird, beast and man, me and thee
Beyond the earth planet and its sphere
Will benefit, gain our care and love
Will suffer no pain or strain because of us
By the very law of union as it functions
And our non-violent deeds begun at home
On this Earth, will, like a stone
Ripple out upon the Universal ocean all around
Then star and plant and animal and atom
Bird, beast and man and fowl and ocean creatures
All life streams known and those as yet unknown to us
Will not stain with blood and suffer but blend in unity.
And our peaceful deeds begun at home here
On this Earth will, like other peaceful actions of our race
Gently, quietly ripple out into universal space.
LOOK NOT AT ANOTHER
I want you not to be tempted
To desire for more than we have
When our love brings us happiness
Harmonious, we share life together.
Look not wantonly at others
Disturbs my heart so, if you do
Thinking even for a moment
You can neglect me, and feel discontent
I ask not much, for what I give
I ask what all true women must
That with her love goes magic thread
If this is damaged, she'd rather be dead
Kill not the magic we have known
Kill not the life blood in my heart
By small and careless advances
Rest content in my loving entrances
If you care for our love to stay
Hearken to earnest words I pray
Because in womanhood's sweet way
Love blooms only in love's security
We must love others, as brothers
In marriage, remain world apart
In matters of our secret heart
Reveal no trusted secrets to others.
Please stay strong, my lover, my friend
My faithful love for you alone
My love not passing as the dew
Eternal love is what I feel for you
So please look upon another
Only as a caring brother
Please keep my poor fond heart intact
By not breaking or straining our love pact...
Should you ever choose to seek another
Then pray treat me gently as a brother
Tell me truthful if love thread is broken
Leave me free to weave another life strand.
And thus I pray when time comes to measure
The fullness of life's exhaustive treasure
We will be confident that well we've earned
A far Greater Love, for which we've yearned.
LOST AND FOUND
When I, a small infant wandering first
In the long, rank weeds of our garden earth
My father's legs my only anchorage
I was lost, then found - joy my heritage!
Feeling soft brush with the grass green and lush
First touching for myself each, every bush
Cruel the lost touch with father, then to find
Reunion! Joy! Now my life is kind!
Youthful joy of first exploration known
Joy of welcoming arms was to me shown
Experience learnt by me well that day
Will remain with me always, come what may
It's fine to be all alone and tiny
Pleasant the search for both dull and shiny
But when the great world you're in brings some fear
Secure, comforting arms on high are dear.
And although I'm grown up now with the years
Sharing the wider world now of my peers
Certain we seem yet to those high above
Still tiny, and needful of their great love
Yet, in the fair system of life's great plan
In which all Nature's creatures live, and man
Is there no great One there still up above
To gently lift us with arms of love
LOVE'S FABRIC
In Love's fabric, the inextricable weaving
Of moods of both human joy and melancholy
Allows love's facets be woven in subtle cloth
Infinite the patterns, colours of expression
Varied as are the loves of man's experience.
Love's fabric is dyed in colours bright, or pastel
Our love for one, flowing as a blood passion strong,
And for another our gentler love overflows
In the cooling emotions of our sympathy
Varied are the colours in love's experience!
Loves delicate, on silken threads are fine woven
Some fabrics endure as coarse canvas embellished
Others disappoint, are frail, tear at slightest stress
Or dissolve, the love destroyed beyond redemption
Whilst others fade when touched by a ray of truth's light
The rare quality of love is not for capture
But design and colour holds for us its symbol
Fabric type denotes base for our embroidery
Human love threads woven into mortality
Endures in some eternal fabric of the Universe.
LOVING
Mere channels of love's finest force of life
Mere flotsam on the seas of fate and chance
Surrendering in ecstatic moments
We melt into love's rhythm of its dance
Emerging, twain we find identity
Then stronger, fine, mature we seem to know
Secret of the eternal paradox
When time to stress the "I" and when let go
As little wisdom we in life possess
There's still the human risk that we will err
Be guilty - the arid soul its treason
Forswear love and disaster to incur.
We must choose, and each of us has power
To influence the whole for bad or good
Let each remember past experience
Hear echoes of love's heroes in our blood
Truly, love is the greatest force on earth
Affecting us and all of natures realm
Love is the interplay of opposites
Seeks equipoise, love's peace within the heart.
Mere channels of love's energy and fire
Mere mediums for tides of love to flow
In surrender to ecstatic moments
In wonderment, true life and love we know.
LOVE IS LIKE A WATERFALL (song )
Love is like a waterfall, a raindrop or a tear
Love is like an ocean wide, or flood I cannot bear
Love is like a shining lake or just a gentle mist
Love is sometimes subtle but I know it when I'm kissed...
Love is like a joyful splashing, joy that does not cease
Love is floating gently on a river of great peace
Love is sometimes drowning in an ocean far too strong
Love is overwhelming, then I'm loving all day long...
Love is like a feeling of a glow or sometimes fire
Love brings quiet contentment or a zeal that's quite inspired
Love is sometimes taking then I find I've given all
Sometimes I feel great in loving then so very small...
Love is like a cleansing as when I take a shower
Love from someone good makes me feel just like a flower
Love refreshes, gives me life and makes my heart to feel
In love with love awaiting for love my heart to steal...
Love is watery, cool and can take my breath away
Love is liquid and I'll often melt when love holds sway
Love is pure and white and when you take me by the hand
I feel it's love that shines like the sun throughout the land...
Let love flow like a waterfall, raindrop or a tear
Love may come to make a partnership hold someone near
But when love comes like an ocean, broad and vast and blue
Then cast away all else and know you've found loving true...
LURE OF THE CITIES
Lure of the cities with strained city sinning
Lured by enticement of dark - absence of light
Drawn is the weak one who knows not the true spark
Of spirit's true home in his breast shining bright.
Should not the love in the heart and the mind light
Guide us develop states of virtue and love
For darkness itself can draw as a magnet
Endangered, those blinded by power of the night
Fear not, as darkness can ne'er seek encroachment
Even a candle light has power to repel
Tempt not dark by yielding to the seduction
Of cities false glamour, confusion of thought.
Modern noisy cities polluted by harsh sounds
Now perverted from primitive, once simple man
In natural accord his delight once knew no bounds
He developed his culture in natural surrounds
Unnatural distortions, strident notes, the symbol
Of man's present rejection of culture evolved
Discarded the super-human gods and glories
Forgotten ideals of our legends and stories
Destructive forces lack harmony and beauty
Disease caused by chemicals and discordant noise
Darkness shadows faces which have turned from the light
Man suffers, brought to his knees in dire social plight
Once taste the joy of birds singing in the morning
Feel once peace, calm in the open country, and hills
Breathe free crystal air of wilderness surroundings
You'll never fall victim to man's cities and ills!
