the America Quartet

four poems on the Spiritual America

by Joel A. Wendt

a brief introduction:

On September 11th, 2004, I was invited by a friend to go to a 9/ll poetry reading at the public library in Prescott, Arizona.  I was deeply touched, and upon returning home wrote this poem: the gift of another’s eyes.  This experience echoed and reechoed such that over the following weeks three more poems needed to be written: America Sings; the Rape of the Republic; and, Some of Us Remember.

Upon later reflection it seems best to begin with the last first, and then the first last.  This I did the first time these were publicly read, again in Prescott at a local monthly poetry reading gathering.  It is in that reversed order then that they are printed below.

They are meant to be read aloud, and perhaps we should have another read them to us when appropriate.  Next below is an earlier bit of verse, which I hope will convey the differences between silent reading and oral reading.

"the gift of the word" very much wants to be read aloud, with some passion and the occasional rush of words. It also likes to have someone read it to us, so that we may concentrate only on "hearing" it.

the gift of the word

Speech, / Words, letters, sounds, / heard by both the inner ear and the outer.

Letters, sounds, words, / linked invisibly to ideas and thoughts.

Ideas, thoughts, letters, sounds, words, / a woven tapestry of meaning,

carried by Speech, / sometimes with grace, / but most often just carelessly.

Meaning, / a weaving of thoughts, sounds, words, letters and ideas,

spoken into the air and left there, / abandoned.

Words, spoken and heard. / Meaning intended. / But what is heard?

That which is heard is also intended. / Two intentions, two purposes, two meanings.

How difficult then communication, / suffering as it does the contrary pulls of multiple intentions, purposes and meanings.

I speak, you listen. / I mean, you grasp. / Somewhere in this delicate dance of words, sounds, letters, thoughts, ideas and purposes; / understanding is sought after.

Perhaps. / Sometimes.

Voice. / Speech reveals the unspoken. / Anger, fear, pride, arrogance, true humility.

The ear of the heart hears what is hidden in voice.

Posture, gesture. / Speech is more than sound. / The eye hears things the ear cannot, just as the ear sees things the eye cannot.

One mind. / Two minds. / Speech a bridge of woven light between two minds, and sometimes, although rarely, / between two hearts.

Speech, rich and full of flavor, / a light bridge, / joining two separate beings.

Speech denatured, / No sound, no gesture, no posture, no voice.

Speech reduced to lines of dark on light. / Written. / A treasure map in code spilled across a page

Words, letters, ideas, thoughts, sounds, / reduced to marks upon a parchment. / Speech dying.

Yet, / even in death, murdered by pen or pencil mark, / some essence of Speech still.

Meaning embalmed. Understanding buried. / Until read.

Reading. / Words, sounds, letters, thoughts, ideas, meaning, purposes, intentions,

Speech resurrected in the silence of another mind.

Speech. / Light bridge dying into print, / reborn when read in the inner quiet of another soul.

Speech, / The Spoken Word. / Writing, / The Word entombed. / Writing read, / The Word resurrected.

That this is so, / that human beings live in such an exalted state having Speech, this is Grace.

The spoken word, the written word. / Things so ordinary, so taken for granted, so pregnant with possibility.

The emptiness between two souls is always / chaste, virgin, pure, / waiting for Grace, for the bridge of light, / for Speech.

The Gift of the Word, originally called Speech, was written on  Epiphany, Jan. 6, 1997, in the evening, in about a third of an hour.

*         *         *

I could easily edit these four poems, but would rather they remain as originally composed.
again ... they are best read aloud, by yourself, or another

Some of Us Remember
by Joel A. Wendt

there's a war in Iraq
I see it on the news
images of dead and dying
pictures of exploded trucks
bombed cities
crying mothers
maimed children

I've seen it all before.
oh, the country side was different
Vietnam was jungle
not desert
water and trees, dark shaded shapes
instead of rock and sand and too much light

but the dead were the same
and the senselessness was the same
and the stupidity was the same
and the horror was the same
and the blood was the same

the young faces of the soldiers are the same
young faces made old in one night of terror
innocence lost forever
mind ripped apart and the remaining
moral nature raped and lamed
even if the body comes home intact

the only difference now, is that
so many Americans don't remember

you can hear it in the political dialogs
in the speeches made by politicians
in the idiotic words spoken by news readers
in the vapid empty entertainments on TV
and in the songs without pain

too many Americans were born
or came of age
after
after the Insanity of Vietnam
so they don't remember
but only know as stories
they never lived

they don't see yet what we
saw
for numbing endless years
the body bags, the caskets
the crying neighbors and friends

the hopelessness of a people
whose leaders had gone around the bend
and cracked open hell's gates
and let the demons loose

so many Americans don't know what
we who remember know
Iraq hasn't gone on so far yet,
only a thousand dead,
while we who do remember
remember 50,000

and endless nights of TV
a nightmare never over
never over
even when over
for hell came back

in lost limbs
and missing faces
and drug addictions
and minds lamed and broken

strange, how many of those lamed
in not so distance a past
wander our streets now
talking to themselves, and
waking screaming in the night

yes there is a monument
in DC
a long black wall of names
but that is not the same
as memory
of politicians' promises
that broken led us deeper
into hell on earth

you can hear it in the dialogs on TV
now
the difference between those who
remember
and those to whom Vietnam
is only a name from something an
older generation laments
and can't seem to let go

the young don't know what it cost
us as a Nation
and many think, as many did then
that we are well led
and so they buy the lies
and history begins its
repetitious and ravenous
eating of our young

and some, like me
we sleep not well, and
find ourselves looking for distraction
ways to forget
what won't be forgotten

memories of a war that didn't die
but now comes to be reborn
yearns in fact to come again
for demons like such darkness
and love to live in hate
and arrogant ignorance

is it worse?

how can it not be,
for the sellers of war
are better at the dark arts now
the politicians better at their lies
the TV better at ignoring truth
and people better at hiding
heads in sand

we do it all better now
all of it, we can only hope

for maybe those who protest
will be better too
those who opposed will be more
able to educate
those who want to stop the madness
more willing to sacrifice

maybe, while the politicians
and the arms industry
and the idiots on the news
the talking heads who can't remember
or never saw even then
tell their lies and plead their dark dreams
as wisdom

maybe their vain foolishness
will stir us deeper inside,
those who refuse to forget
that we fought this war
before and lost
not only national pride
not only dead and lamed young
not only unity of purpose
but the very moral ground on which America once stood

maybe this is what it takes
for heads to be pulled from sand
for politicians lies to be seen through
for our true nature as Americans to rise again

maybe it is justice and karma
that once again we let ourselves be led
into folly so colossal that even the imagination
cannot contain it

maybe there is a price that has to be paid
for what we did so many years ago
or what we didn't do

maybe there is a price to be paid by those
who lied, and got their profit out of blood,
or pretended nothing was happening

maybe there is a price to be paid by those
who tried to stop the madness, but
didn't really risk as much as needed risking

maybe there is a price to be paid by those
who forgot what should never have been
forgotten

maybe there is a price to be paid by those
who heard the stories and have not believed them
and who swallow the same lies once again
in spite of history's lessons

but it isn't a price that should be paid by others,
is it?

politicians should pay it
arms merchants should pay it
idiots on TV should pay it
those who refuse to remember should pay it
those who didn't try hard enough to stop it
should pay it

by why should the children pay it?
why should the soldiers pay it?
why should the world pay it?

maybe that is the real legacy of Vietnam
questions
many many questions

we need to face these questions
or be haunted justly all
our days and nights
forever

haunted with good reason
by the ghosts of children
mothers
daughters
all the so-called collateral damage
and even the young soldiers

haunted we will be
justly haunted
deservingly haunted
for our sleep
for our acceptance of lies
and for our refusal to resist

haunted all  our days
until we stand
and wake up
and insist

no more vanity wars
no more claims that might makes right
no more pretense that politicians
know what they are doing
or that conviction means truth
or belief and opinion are knowledge

war is too dangerous
too permanent
to be sold
on the basis of someone's belief
and conviction that they
know what to do

there needs to be evidence of
competence
evidence of truthfulness
evidence of understanding
evidence of contact with reality
evidence of wisdom
evidence of morality
evidence of humanity

before the drums of wars ever
ever
beat again
for
some of us remember

the Rape of the Republic

by Joel A. Wendt

It began in the womb
for she was magnificent even then
a star brought to earth
to shine brightly into human hearts

but there were those
who could not bear this light
and had their own
darker visions

so that even before She was born
our Republic
she was plundered,
scarred
violated

such that what was born
was born lamed
not whole, but
only a part of the original
magnificence

Yet, She lived and began
her work of holding dear
on the earth
that version that could be seen
of truth, goodness and beauty
in answer to the question:
How shall human beings govern themselves?

before Her birth there were
Kings and Queens
tyrants mostly
abusers of human dignity
despisers of freedom

But human beings could not any longer
tolerate the disdain of aristocrats
and so through bloody revolution
deposed the arrogant and powerful

or so it seemed for a time

great words poured forth
from equally great minds
who held in their hearts
(at least most of them)
Her truth
our Republic

at conception these were the
words in which She first was
seen and felt

self evident truths
unalienable rights
just powers
consent of the governed

the tyranny of blood and inheritance
was pushed away
and human beings stood up and declared
their inviolate divinity

such power, such light
what could stand in the way
of such goodness and beauty
that holds each individual human
divine by self evident truths
unalienable rights
and declares that the only
just powers
come from the consent of the governed

but even there the rape began,
just a little pinch or two
in places sacred
in ideas sublime

a minor argument about
just what unalienable rights
would be enumerated
and while the ideal won
namely: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
another darker idea had been
urged, and thought by some
to be important
a right to property.

so even though the words were clear
and property not mentioned when
our ancestors declared our truth
in certain hearts this darkness lived,
festered and grew.

so that when
the birth came out of minds
holding to this ancient darkness,
the Republic was born
lamed
and our true divinity
not able to fully appear
for property was there
in that Constitution

how else could it be,
given that most of those who
wrote down the words
had property themselves
and owed to others , who likewise
owned property, allegiance

so She was given a fated body
lamed in nature, bound in spirit
and the truth of the Republic
its cosmic star-like presence
was not able to fully
shine forth in our lives

why was property a flaw
some will ask
and the answer is simple
for if we are, in the Republic,
declaiming rights unalienable for all
then property as an idea
means exclusion
some will have
and others will not
or property has no meaning

thus it came to be this
lamed and scarred Republic
laid open now to exclusive
rights of property
that only some would have
when the very idea of the Republic
was rights for all

What had in the declaration
been just a thought held back
was now embodied, fixed
defined

so the Republic grew, and open now
to exclusive rights the power
of property and money grew, and
a new aristocracy of wealth
replaced the one of blood
and being more clever
than kings and queens
who flaunted their powers
the rich ones
hid
and from behind the scenes
acquired their rule

and thus we find ourselves
in this time and place
looking upon a raped and bloody
Dame
our Republic,
held in chains,
blindfolded
unable to move anymore
unless in whipped obedience
to Party hacks
and their owners

so we suffer,
not quite knowing what went wrong
only seeing that when unalienable
rights include the right of exclusive
property
our Republic cannot work,
and so we too become owned
wage slaves
creating the wealth
but not owning the wealth
not even really owning ourselves
for even our education makes of
us good workers and consumers
servants at the table at which wealth eats
while we have scraps and sleep
with dogs

invisible our chains, for wealth is
clever beyond our senses
and has by granting credit
chained us with debt
binding us to jobs
and work
while it sits calmly
engorged on a feast we
are forced to provide

but clever is not wise
and even wealth and property
can error
and error they have,
slothful in their sated
repose

they took and took and
took too much,
so that now we notice what
has been done
although we still are not quite
yet ready to see the full truth
and see Her chained there
raped and beaten our
Republic.

She waits for us, for She is
something we drew down
from heaven, and heaven is
a part of Her

She waits for us to wake and
see
to wake and see
to wake and see Her
bloodied form

and see
the hidden light within
for waiting She has been
because not all those who wrote
Her words
not all those who were forced to give
way to property and exclusion
failed to leave a path
a hidden yet obvious path
for just our time
when wake we must
and see Her,
see Her truly

See She still has power
still has magic
still can be whole

If we just honor Her
and see Her
and set Her free.

Beaten, raped
She still is divine
and still wants to serve us
if we can but learn to know Her
in those most intimate ways
as did those who first wrote
Her words.

For the wisest ones, our Founders,
first speakers of Her words
kept Her true nature intact,
for Her words begin and end
with that which saves the day

We the People rings out the words,
do ordain and establish sings the chorus

We the People do ordain and establish
and there it is, what property couldn't hide forever,
that the Republic is what WE say it is, not
what they say it is.

Oh they tried.  They tired to bind us to their
lamed and broken version,
but their ambition and greed has
undone them

they have gone too far
taken too much
and
now they wake us up
and we see Her
clearly

not the lamed and broken Dame,
the chained and raped Woman
our dear Republic,
but we see Her true, as she was meant to be
and we also see that She has kept faith
with us, while we slept

for the very words with which Her broken form
began...we the people do ordain and establish
and the words with which She ended in that lamed version with
powers not delegated are reserved to the people.

that raped form those who loved their exclusive rights of
property gave to us, still was true,
for property was held in between our powers of ordination
and establishment
and that which is not delegated we retain.

Government still only has that which we consent for it to have
and if we choose to take from our legal framework that
diseased exclusive right of property,
then we are free to do so,
and nothing
nothing
can stop us.

So we can unchain Her
unbind Her
heal Her
and so unchained, unbound and healed,
She will give us all, as it was meant to be
when first She fell to earth.
in words written in blood
and carved from the stone of wisdom
She fell

and wants to fall again,
if we but wake up and see Her
chained there
waiting for us to make
new words

words unbloodied this time we hope
words free of exclusive rights
words now truly
self evident
unalienable
rooted in the
power of our consent

so She calls to us
give me a new body now
free of chains and violation
free of exclusive rights
free of rights not for all

so She calls to us
seeking our new words
carved from a new stone of wisdom
a living stone
a philosophic stone
a heart stone.

so She calls
now
now
now



America sings

written September 26th 2004

an army marches toward me now
hungry to destroy

it seeks to devour ideas this army
it wants to eat reason like a tide of locusts
on a field of ripe wheat

nothing of the truth
is to stand in its ravenous way, and
at its head, is a man, who
in his vanity and ambition
believes his own righteousness,
a terrible hubris that cannot but try to
kill: reason, truth, and ideas

so falseness is pasted everywhere, for
no lie is too much for this army
no truth too precious not to be murdered

its just politics, says the chief apologist
we are right to assert our beliefs
say the masses following blindly

truth is not relevant, says the watching
media, we should know, we have had no use
for the truth for years

so the army marches towards me,
a hideous mouth filled with teeth
and the blood of children

who and what am I,
that I might, or might not, fear this army?

who could possible be afraid
of that which tries to eat ideas,
to devour reason,
to bury truth

are ideas and reason not real, but rather
just vain dreams, and wishes, something
that should fall before beliefs?

Should not those who wish, get
to assert their opinions over truth,
if it suits their purposes?

who is concerned about what an idea feels,
or what the truth cares about anyway.

these are just passing fancies,
while beliefs are holy and sacred.

Or so some say, who don't bother
to think at all.

I will tell you now
my most secret name,
for I am an idea
and only that

America is my name,
and I am more real than
this army or its vain
head can imagine

I am more powerful too.

Why?

Because I cannot be killed, tho'
armies rush and gnash their teeth

I am immune to violence, and
not only that, to seek my
death is to grant me even
greater life.

To push me down is to raise me up
to hide me is to expose me
to lie about me is to unveil me

for I am everything the lie is not
everything the hate is not
everything the unreasoning is not

so, if you want to know me
then just listen to the politicians
and think of that they do not say

for there I am, hidden in plain
sight, just beyond the limits of
the lie, for not only can I not
be killed, not only am I inviolate,
I am immortal

I am spirit, I am divine
for true ideas live outside
of time, and space
and the vain posturing
of politicians

I am America,
and these dark ones
cannot have their way with me.

Do you have the courage to face me
do you have the courage to face the truth
do you have the courage to look at reason
square in the face and test your beliefs
against my being and nature?

Listen then, if you dare,
listen to the truth,
to pure reason
and see if all your
politics has even one ounce of
reality

America is not any
political party

neither the Democrats,
or the Republicans
or the Greens
nor do any of the ambitious ones
running for president
own me, or even know me

Many take my name in vain,
America this and America that
but each such statement is a lie
meant only to serve the speakers
vanity

America, I am, but I
am not a sitting government
or a Nation or even
a People

Although any can, if they
would, pledge their allegiance
to my reality

I am not a war on terror
or a war in Iraq
although I can be a soldier dying

I am not an arms manufacturing business
or a pharmaceutical company
although I can be the one who
cleans the toilets there

I have no need for wealth
or for power

I have no need to announce
my presence, for when I
am truly there, anyone with eyes
will see me

I am invisible to that which
is not like me
and visible to all who know
me in their hearts

I am not patriotic,
although any true patriot will love me

You see me first as a dream
a dream of freedom from oppression
a dream of fair pay for reasonable work
a dream of quiet streets where children
play

I live in the imagination of people
everywhere, who know that their
dignity and their humanity
is ignored in that dark place
where they are yet forced to live.

I even live in the land that is
named after me, although
still more in dreams
than in the realm of social justice

That land, named after me
has forgotten me more than any
other place now.

Covered me over, buried me
in a coffin of lies,
yet, even tho' buried
I am everywhere yearned for
So strongly that I am kept alive
outside the continent on which I first
touched earth,

but in that land, even I would
be glad to call home,
the politicians seek my death
while the wealthy fight over
my spoils

Do you seek the good?
Then you seek me.

Do you run from hate?
Then you run to me.

Do you know your
brothers and sisters all over the world
then you know me.

Do you worry now,
do you cry inside
fearful of the dark ones
who seek to rule?

Then come to me,
and lean on me,
for there is no burden I
cannot bear that you can feel

You need not believe in me
by the way,
for I am your own heart
set free

and when you dance and sing
and share and love
and seek peace, not war,
I am there with you
and in you.

Are you angry against
the dark ones?

Do you wish their defeat,
their end,
their demise?

Please no, for by such thoughts
you separate yourself from me

I mean no harm
and need to defeat no one.

Yes, the dark ones, and their
masses of unreasoning believers
spread all the worst of lies

but think how they are driven
not by reason
but by fear.

It is fear from which
they need release.

And while they thrash about
in fear, and push and shove
the piles of lies that seek
to hide me,
you fear not, for even though
ages pass, I still will come to all

and while many are too filled with
fear, too filled with hate
too filled with belief at the
expense of reason
you need not fall into their
dark dreams

Do not let them drag you down
into their lost land,
but kept your own council,
keep your own ideas,
keep me near your heart,
and seek those like yourself.

Where you have the company of
like minded, there I live,
and you will have me, whatever
the fear mongers claim or insist

the true,
the good,
the beautiful

are such a light that no dark
can hide or cover over

Be what is in your heart,
and in any circumstance
then I will live in you

You are my true home,
the only place an idea
can really live.

Invite me in,
I have been waiting for you
for a very long time.



a gift from another's eyes

written, September 11th, 2004

he stood beside me, silent
yet loudly proclaiming his truth

he grabbed my soul and offered
his eyes, his dead ghostly eyes
some would say

but seeing out of them I could not
say ghost or dead, but only
flaming living spirit!

I could not look away and we
became one, and so I had to speak
to witness what we saw, or
if you will, what he showed me.

first a high tower view
and a desk full of papers
needing attention, and work

inside him a pain, a fight at breakfast
the partner edgy, the children afraid
the marriage in jeopardy.

mind floating, he/we can't concentrate,
something is not right, an hint of anxiety
as if all stood balanced on the abyss

then
the building shudders, a deep
moaning cry, and while sounds of
explosions echo away into
screams of fright

we run now, this way and that
up and down
looking to escape the danger and
the rumors

there is no hiding place,
only the rock

panic now, smoke filling lungs,
flames licking at windows,
sirens rising from below and panic
wins

A chair through a window,
which shouldn't break, but does

Insane now, we fly...out
with no wings
tumbling over and over

free somehow of most of fear,
except the dread of
waiting for the pain of
impact!

Finally it comes,
and just as quickly passes,
and
so we descend this ghost
and I

our eyes united, our souls one

descend into the earth as if
having jumped into a swimming pool
floating falling, gliding down and down
a sense of maybe drowning in concrete
and dirt, but then a hand

luminous, gentle, we are gripped
taken hold of and lifted.

rising now, up through earth
and then out
into sky and light
seeing flame and smoke
but not alone

there are others with us,
souls, spirits, what is in a name?

the luminous hand lets go, and we float now
have the sense of a lifetime's companion
protector, teacher, for whom the naked
words guardian angel hardly touch
its meaning

then we watch as others are drawn
up from falling or other forms of
life's end

until first one and then the other
tower falls, and as each lets
go, there is a tone, a deep bell
that rings through everything

finally, the smoke clears, and we
can see that we are many now
thousands easily

we circle round and above
the place of doom
and the grief below rises through us
and we can not but breathe it in

for air is not our sustenance anymore,
just feelings, raw sometimes and light
filled when others below pray, and
we breathe it in and witness.

we circle round some more,
for this is our first new task
to witness and bear within
the grief of that which
we have left behind

eventually, one by one we are drawn
higher, and he who has given me his
eyes, turns, and sees his grandmother
who holds him, and us, close at first

drawn higher we are, the many
witnesses, knowing just our
witnessing itself is sacrifice received
into the Heart and Root of all the World

sacrifice received, a date
and time and place made sacred

but even as we left
this hallowed place, following
the grandmother's kindness,
we could see behind us

a darkness forming, for already
some hearts, cold and wrong
made ready to steal what they
could of this sacrifice
made by both the still living.
and the newly gone

a theft more terrible then the
doom of
falling towers themselves

so like a child needing comfort, we two
turned away from this flooding darkness
seeking the grandmother
to rest there in such embrace as never
before needed, or felt.

touched this way we travel through
a quick remembering of life,
and sensing shame at those all
too frequent dark deeds,

she leads us on, and takes us
to a school wherein we will
live how it felt to others to
know us.

the girl we teased for a torn
dress, whose soul we scarred with
shame

the boy we tripped whose
nose was broken in the fall
and whose father beat him
later for a coward he was not

the teacher who lost her job
and later killed herself for the
lie we told about the touch
that never happened

all this and more we lived
inside what they felt,
and the years passed, while
the earth below

continued its ravages of light
and pain

yes there was light, even in our story...
the child we loved and held
when sick, walking the night
away

the friend we stayed with
when the drink was too much
and life more than they could
bear

the year we volunteered
at the shelter

we knew it all, our deeds of dark
and light, and how they felt to
others

early once, in this long school
of others feelings,
there came a break
and grandmother took us from
this labor for a time

down to earth again, to a
place of strangeness
a people not like what we
had been

A small room, a woman rocking
a child and crooning a wordless
tune, yet something more she
felt than love

fear it was, a nameless dread
too soon to be fulfilled
as the night exploded with
light and sound

and the ground shuddered until
after a moments pause
a great stone fell from the
sky

thrown by a bomb made
in America, the stone hurled
up and up and then fell

through the roof, crushing mother
and daughter, and for the little
girl a lingering death
innocence shattered and
life ended in enduring only pain

but then we saw the angels come
and drawing them up they too
stood around, in groups with
varied faces, foreign and domestic

in the nearby invisible realm of true light
they too witnessed for a time, until
we watched the older relatives take
them up, and on to that school of
mirrors of life felt and not seen

But his grandmother was not through, and
she pulled us down, down and down
beneath the earth, and we knew we followed
where Christ had once gone, on a Saturday,
straight to Hell!

Down she took us, this wise
elder woman, down and down
through realms of bestial screams
and inhuman cries

places so dark and mean
that mere words cannot find
names

until

a realm is seen,
somehow on the other side
of Hell there is a place of Light

How could this be we think,
but pulled ever on by elder
wisdom we come to a place
so gentle and kind of feeling

so safe, so much like home
remembered

and then we see them,
there in the Root of the World,
sitting in a circle, individual
and joined at the same time

names fly through our mind
Demeter, Diana, Persephone,
Sophia and the Holy Mother

What Mystery!

that on the other side of Hell
lives the deeps of the Divine
Feminine, the realm of the true
Dark, the Dark in which the Light
Itself was born

Then we saw it falling from
above, a constant endless rain of evil deeds,
of pain and hate and violence
and more

a rain of poison, and theft of
innocence and all the most
terrible of human actions

falling like darkest, vilest
blood, on the circle
there - the circle of
deepest Holy Dark

into them it streamed, this
evil dark substance unredeemed

where breasts had once given milk
it entered in
where the womb had once given
birth, it entered in

streaming hate and crime, moving
into the Holy Mother through
all Her wounds that should but
bear the most wondrous gifts

But that was not the end of it,
for once inside such a power
eyes could not bear took
hold, and rendered

all this hate and evil
Impotent! Powerless! Undone!

through the wounds of giving
went the evil, and inside
it lost its nature, for there a great
and holy power transformed
our darkest acts, until

from out the eyes and mouth
of Feminine Mystery
came tears and words of love

golden, light filled, rising
not falling, back through
the realms of Hell came tears
and words of love

all to soon now, before we
could contemplate this miracle
divine, his grandmother took
us back and up

to a new place of vision,
outside the earth, as if
on the moon, yet closer,
and so we saw
the earth naked in its spiritual truth

there before our gaze we saw
the man on the cross, His image
fading out to earth and then
fading back in again

in the ever pulsing Heart of the World,
first the one image - just the earth,
then the other - the man on the cross

but even that was not fixed,
for the man on the cross
shifted as well, sometimes sitting
on a rock, holding children in his lap

or blessing a woman
or becoming a dove
or sitting at the feet of the highest

but as we watched we saw more...
more evil, more hate, more crime, more
theft of innocence

for not all evil fell downward through Hell
toward the Holy Mother,
resting in the Root of the World
not all

for evil's hunger could not rest
in just one place, but
sought to despoil all that lived
or loved the Light

so an equal portion rose up and out
especially that most terrible
of lies, hypocrisy - to say one
thing and do another

here too, in the Heart of the World,
the wounds were
entrance points, and evil
flowed into Him as well

five wounds
two on hands
two on feet
and one in the heart itself

but there too, within Him, it
was made impotent, unbound,
and healed, so that now
from a second place
tears and words of love fell
inward from without

fell from how He surrounded
and held the world to his bosom,
falling slowly toward the earth

tears and words of love
falling inward, from the surrounding
Heart of the World
meeting that which was
falling upward from
the Root of the World

meeting each other,
these tears and words of love,
mingling, touching, mixing,
changing into a fine mist
invisible to the eye

but everywhere,
an atmosphere of healing feeling
breathed in by human hearts,

wherever and whenever
they opened to each other

human
open hearts
breathing in the mist
of tears and words of love
the Mother and the Son
having redeemed
evil and changed
it into love

sustenance, nourishment,
a Eucharist of being.

enters open human hearts
and graces them,
granting courage,
wisdom,
and even more love

it was too much to see
such Holy Craft and Art

And while I did not want to leave
his eyes which saw
and witnessed such as could
not be imagined

yet leave I had to, and so
the grandmother returned him
to school and me
she sent back
to my keyboard so as to record
and witness
what was seen and felt,
this day of September the 11th,
2004

done