Come Closer, Child.

Your clothes are meadow fragrant.
the smell of sunshine is in your hair.
Your voice is music, your laughter young.
The song you sing is bright and fair.

Come closer, child. My eyes are dim.
Feeble the light left in the day.
My ears are weak. My heart is full.
So much I wish that I could say.

Take my hand. Kiss my cheek.
Run your hand over my hair.
I feel your love. I see your tears.
I know and feel your tender care.

Weep not for the dying light.
Look how the stars trek the sky,
How with each passing night
The slither moon does magnify.

We all must pass. Imagine the horror
This glorious earth would be
if these mixed and complex minds,
Untransformed, lived for eternity.

I have watched the stars,
Grasped at life from within the womb,
Smelt green shoots from warm wet ground,
Danced to earth's relentless tune,

Sensed some great directing spirit
Great beyond the power of mind,
Behind, within and through everything,
Felt it to be merciful, loving and kind

But now, right now, darkness closes,
Thick, complete, more total than night,
My eyes have shut, my heart has stopped.
O look, look, the light! the light...

Prayer for Help.

In this mire I sink and drown,
in this mire are only frowns.
     Each step a threat,
         for all around
             the mud is thick
                 and bears you down.
                    You feel its grip,
                     its downward suck,
                and finally admit
            the power and pull
       of this bottomless pit.
O let your hand reach down.
Please pull me out to solid ground.