ONE

Would that one beam of that lemon-kissed 

hellebore of waking dreams 

would smile upon my bereft brush!

Would that I could thread my loom with one

strand of that rippling azure veil!

Would that my heartstrings could splash

one note of the salt spray's 

silver-blue chords upon my stave!

I seek to capture Earth's storms of colour,

my mortal senses scouring

her swathes for their sagas and songs.

Yet, nor words nor pigment

could repeat the hues and tones of visions,

echoes of olden memories.

Nyx retreats, glancing darkly upon one who

would immortalise her treasures.

Nay, Goddess, my unversed hands find no

accord with a fractious canvas

that will not be sullied by counterfeit

moonglow and starlight.

Eos processes across its spotless expanse,  

coral banners of momentary victory

raised to the frowning trireme of the West,

anon yielding to mighty Helios,

undesirous of clinging to her past eminence.

Briny waters speak from turquoise depths,

the Song of Eternity upon their ancient breath.

I am a mere bubble upon their spume,

my mind and spirit housed in withering flesh,

enmeshed in a premise

of substance and separateness,

pondering posterity and permanence.

I shall contemplate the Universe's Art this Day,

the moment of glorious culmination, 

when strands of wind, light, spray and souls

shall be One.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE DAWN (edited)

Source: bouboum.net 

Artist: John La Farge 

BARE

Frosted concretions glisten through

the softness of snowy swells;

ever and anon, a bitter whiff tinges

Earth's silvern wreaths,

discarnate, yet gravid,

as the disenchantment of blossoms 

that perish by the Sun 

untouched;

not an inviolate, perennial malaise,

but a deep melancholy

afflicts our Mother,

inveigled into Her gaze and aspect

by Winter's breath.

It is not sorrow that rests heavy upon

my brow, nor the weight

of dotage that cumbers my limbs,

bows my spine.

Nay, it is Time's slow tread through 

this air heavy with decay,

these astringent fumes that freeze

the white soliloquy of stillness

in my throat.

Rime-rimmed leaves swirl around my

wistful feet, their dry, brown rasps 

echoing the Season's rhyme,

their spiral dance tracing the path

of the sacred cycle.

I ponder Earth's frigid, fleecy palls,

severe, unembellished,

shrouding her barrenness, as soon the

ground would my own.

Nay, Winter does not dissemble, 

nor does she sweeten her tenor with

divers hues and vignettes;

age and wisdom bid me seek her

desolate beauty, her eloquent quietude,

for therein to find my peace.

My eyes alone shall speak in her

formidable presence, flashing the light 

of storms to come, a light that sweeps

away the darkness before me.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE OLD WOMAN IN WINTER

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Artist: Fernand Khnopff

DARK

You feared the light for
the shadows it cast.
Yet, you retreated
into the dark,
into an incorporeal guise
for the archaean
sorrow scrawled upon
your bones.
You engraved its pulse 
upon your skin,
its bloom rapidly shrinking
from life,
parched for want of
flowing warmth
and fleshy ballast,
bleeding lines
painstakingly scored,
perfectly parallel,
like the bars of your
inner confinement.
Crimson wounds blossomed,
shrivelled,
paled to cold white scars,
soon a tangled mass,
livid weeds in the
garden of your soul,
leaching the joy that should
have been its bequest.
In vain I sought to dull the
invisible blade
that slashed at your heart
from within,
consuming your reflection,
feeding your demons,
these arbiters of your baptism
of unceasing denial.
I shall never know the lives you
lived in your dreams,
for you have erased every trace
of the past and present.
I shall not seek you in your
wonted haunt, I have not
the stomach for such a dark.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: aarwungallery.com

Artist: Margarita Georgiadis

ROWAN II

Your dwelling I defend, your spirit preserve;
my fruit Nature crowned with
an ancient star, arcane sigil of her protection.
Sacred am I to fair Brighid,
born in the Goddess' land of the faery folk,
upon Earth shielded
by the Guardian of the Otherworld.
Many a forlorn heart seeks expression in my
green shade, listening for whispers
of the ineffable, for the language of Grace that
is the blood of the sacred cycle.
In my light shall mortal words glow brighter,
imbued with hues of my import.
The Tree of Immortality am I, destined to fly
as Brighid's arrows;
to swirl and sing as spinning wheel and spindle,
sharing in your labours of love, your art.
My branches shall build Beltane's fires,
Samhain's blazing torches, my music thus set
free, thence to drift over Earth's vastness,
that I may taste a new and remote air,
my song shining against the looming night,
where once the Wheel of Fire edged my boughs
and leaves with gold.
The flowers of my soul shall forever bloom in
this sacred air; 
my shade, now greener, shall ray from a briefly
barren hollow through Spring's first Dawn.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: galleryhip.com

ROWAN

What green light beckons me into

the Spring Dawn?

'Tis the nodding, newborn leaves of

the blessed Rowan,

the ungraspable inflection of bliss 

at their first glimpse of 

the Great Fire in wildly various voices

ringing the sleeping forest awake.

And I am reborn to the birth-song of

this verdant chorus,

my spirit reawakening to Nature's

transcendent eloquence,

conceding my own ineffectual mortal

articulation of Creation's wonder 

scrivened upon pallid parchment.

Nay, these woods hold testimonials

of the Highest Artistry.

I shall not pray this Season

at your feet, leafed Sage,

for a facility with words; I shall implore

blankness, oblivion,

that I may lie upon your roots,

for to listen to Mother's own song,

that Earth may pen her hymn

to the Great Source upon my being.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: www.panoramio.com

TIME II

My impalpable canvas, 

omnipresent,

infinite, 

fount and mirror

of your soul's vision,

was, is and shall ever be;

mortals shall not note 

Eternity's flow,

though each child of Earth

its portion may claim 

upon its bosom,

marking the passing 

of minutes, hours and days,

heedless of

my patterns and ways,

for I measure Life,

as it drifts past my

boundless threshold.

My spiralling shadow is the

constant companion

of your soul's thirst,

of its fearful flight from

the Light that would

loose its fetters.

Wisdom, the Great Source's

emissary and sentinel,

beckons to all who

weary of the dark,

its mileposts concealed, 

yet perceived through

nebulous sweeps

of your inscience, 

its beacon invoking your

own inner flame,

that you may emerge

healed and restored from

your storm of quiet,

this place of penance

upon your quest.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: TIME SAVING TRUTH FROM FALSEHOOD AND ENVY

Source: www.the-athenaeum.org

Artist: Franҫois Lemoyne

THE HERMIT

Countless prayers have I launched
into the ether upon flamelets
of my soul, since its desire I spoke
amid the dross of earthly life.
"A world of illusions lures all who
crave respite from strife,
a desolate hush of shadows where
dark oblivion awaits, where words
and steps fall thoughtless, astray.
I would follow the disdained beating
of Wisdom's solitary drum
into resplendent stillness, for among
sages to meditate upon
the Universe's ways,
for to attend the flow of Time's tides
through the Summer of life
past my rustic threshold.
What need have I of Ambition,
of one who strives to master himself
before Fate, endeavouring to find
meaning in his ceaseless struggle?
Truth and Beauty elude him;
rebirth by the unseen glow of the dark
moon shall he never know,
nor the futility of man-made words
that simulate Nature's sounds,
but not her voice, nor her essence.
How shall he construe being, who has
silenced his spirit?
I would explore the vital element of our
deathless souls,
the Light that subtends all Creation.
I would contemplate all, behold all,
beneath the skies of Eternity."

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE HABITATION OF A HERMIT 

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Artist: Apollinary Vasnetsov 

JOURNEY IV

How ineffable is the mind of man, 

its formless fabric a tortuous

triumph of foreordination and will; 

I would live bereft of my shadow,

the very device 

that tethers me to Gaea's realm.

I would be as a waveless ocean

plumbing its tides in etheric depths, 

as a wingless ave swept skyward 

upon plumes of light, 

bartering motion for glimpses of

Infinity's farthest reaches.

Among leafless trees, I mark every

silhouette save mine,

one barren as the Winter to which

it clings, withering in pallid,

brooding calm. In a reality apart,

sun-drunk storms dance on, 

as I alone dream forgotten dreams  

upon a dextrorse pathway

around an argentine axis of quiet, 

an unseen turbulence

propelling its soundless, rhythmic

twirling, divergent impulses

ballasting Life's flow.

Memory draws her divine veil over

my slumbers' plains,

wakening a dell the frost has spared, 

dispelling vapours of sorrow 

and rainbow mirages, merging black

whirlpools with seas of bliss.

Time loops around me, 

yesterday's blooms rise to Summer's

footfall in this vale of eternal joy,

bestowing upon me visions of Light,

expanding my spirit to its core.

Mnemosyne, Mother of Inspiration,

would not forsake me.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE IDEAL (edited)

Source: www.download.bg

Artist: Louis Janmot

JOURNEY III

At Asteria's feet, I combat my mortal self;

I would navigate distant spirals of divine light,

yet, I am a child of Apollo's realm,

ever faithful to the fragile silver filament

his golden orb nurtures, 

that bonds my soul to Life's web,

to a feeble bastion of flesh and bone,

this locus of timeless wars.

I seek those who seek me, fearful of all 

that would sever my conduit to earthly breath.

Yet, I would unshackle my spirit

from false images of virtue,

from malign forces that defile this living Shrine

wandering the ether. 

I am one of a lost, frail tribe,

a dreamer at the foot of the Tree of Life,

aspiring to trace rivers of ancient wisdom that

link Truth to man's polarities,

to paradoxes, to the mind and spirit, to illusions.

Could I dance with etheric tempests, 

fill my cup from the Great Source?

I would flow with atoms upon cosmic seas to

the Sage of the North,

at his altar lay impeding doubts, 

for the life threads of seers, it is said,

are wound upon his spindle. 

I shall implore Polaris' protection, his tutelage.

The storm within now bestilled,

I breathe the hope that Time shall lead me to

the most sacred of wordless oaths

made in shadowless demesnes

of an eternal Sun. Its fire would consume

veils of shade, its rays linger in my inner eye,

that I may tread the Path of Light upon Earth.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE KISS OF THE MUSE

Source: www.wikiart,org

Artist: Paul Cézanne 

JOURNEY II

Alone, I hold my course truthward

as voyager of the skies,

as a witness of promise unfolding

through darkness and despair.

This is my purpose,

my chosen path, inscribing circles

over radiant eminences,

pondering the art of moonbeams

upon rippling peacock brine,

my wandering spirit sending forth

tear-stained gazes 

into its sheltering caverns.

Sole that magnificent dome of blue

could gladden my vision,

for I am a seeker of depths and

teller of tales, who would live

everywhere, everywhen,

communing with souls that would 

speak their traversing.

Such chronicles would abide with the

certainty of Eternal Light

that mourns not the departed, 

for its flames live,

though forms perish; its strains echo

through the ether,

though voices be silenced.

Shall not Destiny ever be thus?

Life's waves of bliss and desolation, 

tides of hope rising and ebbing,

shall whelm the comeliest moon,

disperse the brightest stellar concourse, 

as newborn vessels rise to sight.

Would that I could evermore journey

through Time and Universes,

circumambulate cosmic consciousness,

my breaths and being I would pledge

to portray each sacred cycle

in silver and blood, with my earthly road

to merge before predawn skies.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: SELENE

Source: www.pinterest.com

Artist: Carl Schweninger