The Flower’s Holding
God gives the flowers
Something to hold every day,
Some days, it’s the tears of mothers.
Sometimes, it’s the years that men call failures.
Sometimes, it’s the fragrance of lost words.
Sometimes, it is part of the symphony
God lets it come to tune
In the heart of little flowers.
Sometimes, it’s the dreams
For sleepy children’s eyes.
God knows the flowers
Will make them heaven-wise.
Sometimes, it’s just a song of blue.
Sometimes, it’s just a thought of you.

Beauty Attends
Beauty attends
The birthing of Man,
And she attends his death.
The white altar fires
Of her high hopes
Are then a little dimmed.
Sometimes, they are almost gone out.

All Things Live
All Things live;
The innermost thoughts
Of a Man’s soul
Walk the highway
Of the Universe,
And are seen
By all the pilgrims,
Who have gone before.

Night’s Rosary
Night walks a pilgrim
Along the pathway of the stars.
Her fine ears filled
With the murmurings
Of man’s little sorrows.
She wears a white rose in her girdle.
On sapphires is strung
Her rosary, without its cross.
Its beads are
The anguishes of men
And the emptiness of woman’s hope.
She tells them, hour by hour,
Until they are become
Emeralds at dawn,
Glimmering with faith
As a field in the new spring.
The anguishes are become
A cross of pearl,
So Night folds her rosary
In the morning.

Children of Thought

The Morning Winds caress with their hands the flowers come to bud in the garden of the blue desert. They talk in low starry tones until the flowers open and they behold the little children sleeping there.
These are children born of the thoughts of man and they are clothed with his faith. It so happens that some have no robing but the petals of the flower that encloses them. This has become so because some men have no faith in their thoughts.
In appeal for their gowning Morning explained to Dawn on the Desert, "These are the Children of Thought. They help to make the joy songs of the world."
"I will clothe them," said Faith, "with the silk of children’s laughter."
"And I will make for them little velvet gowns of the memories of maidens on their wedding days," said Recollection.
"I will give them rose-petal handkerchiefs to put in their pockets," promised the Mother of All the Roses.
"I will give them little bags of the fragrance of Hope," said the Baby Brother of all the For-get-me-nots, who goes to the sky every day to bring back blue for their petals.
"We will give them prayer books from our petals," said the stately Lilies who knew all God’s thoughts and how man’s soul was brother to the star.
This was the day of their gowning- the little Children of Thought.
The Passing of Days saw them playing with the sands of the blue desert, making joy songs of little grains of sand that are the sufferings in a man’s life through the days of his long pilgrimage.

Words Woman Holds in her Heart
What are the words
Woman holds in her heart?
Wings of the dawning,
And feet of the night,
Mantle of the morning,
Girdle of the twilight.
A white flute and a blue star,
An old way of thinking.
And the song
Of a brook that has come
A long ways from the hills.
The rose of a child’s garnden.
The boat of a child’s soul.
The shore of man’s rest.

She is Dead
"She is dead," they said
And they gathered up the things
Of her days.
Life’s little spindle,
Her gentle ways,
The comforting words
That were left a wall
About their fears
To keep them from climbing
Into future years.
The hopes of her pleasing,
Her little vigil hours,
The chest of her maiden dreams,
The flowers of a gladder faith,
The lavender of old tears.
The linen of her fingers weaving,
The garments for her children’s souls
From words writ in the Holy booke.
And the memory
Of strong caressing hands
That they had always found
Understanding.
Afterwards, in one old chest
In the room she had slept in,
They found the gentle joys
Of her waiting years—
The petals of the hopes
At her children’s birthing.

The End of a Sapphire Day
At the long ending
Of a sapphire day
The fields were silvered
With slipping light
While Time was washing
The net of Day
In a turquoise sea
Under a little new moon.
There was a woven water glimmering
Where the net was tired
And Twilight had drawn
Threads for its remaking
From the aureoled opalescence
Of the strong heart of man.
God, going for His evening walk, saw
And caught in His hand
The light that passeth on.
For the net was agleam
With the sheep
Of the ropes of pearl
Woven of the strands
Of the Sorrow of Sorrows--
Woman’s travail.

The Little Crooked Gray Boulder

The little Crooked Gray Boulder dwelt in God’s Garden. He had no remembering of who brought him there. But the White Swallow knew that he came from an old country where all the fires were gone out. One time God burned up man’s desire and an old world died. The Little Crooked Gray Boulder had a dim remembering, but mostly he loved the sky so forgetting came to him of his early home. Only his heart sang a deep quiet joy and thumped a great deal. That was because all the molecules of his being were the little joys God had gathered up in that old world. The gathering was before its deathing. After that there was no more gathering for the old world became a breath on the passing wind and went the pathway of other old worlds. They are become an unseen river in the sky. Sometimes man feels the current of this river when he is near death. It sings an old song, for it has known the end.

The Weary Hope
The harp of stars sings
On the rim of the world
While its brethren stars
Through space are hurled.
The sea is restless,
The shore cliffs high,
And as man’s thought passes by,
It is played into a song
By this harp of stars.
So the weary hopes of old mothers
Pass into the years, a symphony;
Allegro in the soul of man,
Andante in the eyes of woman,
Con moto in the web of time.

Beauty
Beauty is a thing not held with hands;
A plant in the heart of man,
The garden of children’s laughter,
A quiet pool in the eyes of woman.
The calling that leads man far,
A whispering on the wind,
A flute under the white star,
The high urge of man’s desire,
The white flame in the red fire.
As Others Are
If we must be as others are,
Let us take the beauty of others’ lives
As the star of the hour.
Let us make a little nose-gay
Of the buds of their joys,
With the fragrance of their sorrows
And the understanding of their hearts.

Where Freedom?
When most bound, most free
In one’s heart, and a garden.
Free on the hills
And a city within four walls.
A kingdom in a room,
A song on the wind.
The listening heart
That finds a part
In all earth’s musings.
A little time, a little day,
A weary way
And a long road.
Where Freedom?
It whirls with the snow
In the winds on the mountain top,
It beats in the heart of earth,
Flashes in the lightning
And battles in the thunder.
Out in the fields,
There’s a breath of Freedom
On the winds,
There’s her touch
In the rustle of the leaves.
And on high seas
There’s a vanishing footprint.
In the running wave.
But these are not the essences.
When other things we would be doing
And toil falls to our lot
Then Freedom comes to us.
At such a time she carries
No star in her sceptre or crown;
But there is
A comforting rustle in her gown,
As she walks round us
And comes to sitting down.
She comes
From where nightly yonder stars
Dream our dreams for us.
She comes--to the heart of man.
From the field without to the field within
She brings the thought fragrance
Of other world and distant star flowers
To begin the incense fires
In the long hall of the mind--
Where come to march the wakeful glories
Of ancient sleeping years.
She marches there another valiant host.
She counts their energetic footsteps
To the ticking of the Future’s minutes.
She marshals them on into the soul
A joyous crowd,
Where listening, they wait their calling.
Her voice is low.
To quickening faith her challenge thrills
While Holy light the Soul’s cathedral fills.
And all its dim aisles know
The footfall of the radiant quietness.
And they, her marshalled forces,
They of the tall brotherhood,
They of the glowing wills,
In answering
Sing out their anthems high that rise
Like incense mist around the gothic arches,
Until the bells of the sleeping years,
Through the vaulted silences,
Ring back in answering;
And thus their chorus loud in unison
Removes the soul’s shroud
And overpowers
The empty hours
With living song
"FREEDOM IS WORK."

The Little Comet
A Tale for Children and Taller Ones
There is a little comet
That whirls around the world.
Sometimes,
He is seen nearing earth
At the graylight hour of seven.
But, mostly he is seen
Dancing and prancing up and down
The high hall of heavens.
He goeth quickly,
Yet may be always with us.
He sparkles a song
That is like a ribbon
With a jingle ball on it.
Have you heard him sing?
"I’m tired of being just a comet--
I’d like to find a home.
I can be in a lot of places
At one time,
Only people don’t know it.
"My tail can be very big with light
And I’d like to go to bed at night."

*

  Some of these poems were provided by the nice folks at this link

http://www.spokaneoutdoors.com/flowstar.htm