BEAUTY XVI

The mystery of Life she expounds

to your inmost flame;

your vessel she blesses, that it may

heed Time's decree.

No mortal affliction shall impede

your pathway to her favour;

the deaf may hear her tones,

the blind, see her light,

the mute, chant her praise,

the lame, sway in her radiance,

for she moves the Soul to

hear and speak, to dance and sing.

Her whisper whelms

the tyrant's roar, her touch enfeebles

the barbs of man's contempt.

Her tints she rains upon your domain,

even upon shores of your unbelief

that repel tides of Hope.

Her voice you would discern

in the moonlight tinkling upon the rill;

its silver tones take

unto your heart. Seek her, as the lily

that lines the grave

looks up to the Sun she no more sees.

Call to her in silent worship,

as a swan to the one rainbow that

knows its death-song.

In dreams, journey to your Spirit's birth,

to where Truth's golden shadow falls,

for, upon its eternal crest,

Beauty renews herself.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE VENUS THAT WAS NEVER FINISHED

Source: www.the-athenaeum.org

Artist: John Duncan

JOURNEY VI

The Calm after the Storm rises about

my bruised and broken form

as a stone-white Temple,

a shadow-lit space for contemplation

where the very air revels in an

inviolable Stillness,

and the raw, ravaging emptiness in my

soul transmutes into the echo

of a faraway ringing within the Silence.

In the ampleness of this Hollow,

Pathway to Rebirth, Womb of Healing,

my wretched spirit discerns

the voice of the Void,

my pulse, the pull of a Star

that breathed gold where I now kneel.

My flame grows

into its misty Orb, dissolving into the

dusky air-scape that

fuses Time, Being and Memory.

For a deathless moment, I burn gold,

guiding the rise and fall

of the Wheel, leading the Seasons.

Here, where Death hunts Life

and prating stifles Wisdom, I seek Home

in the blazing blue of Mystery's halls,

for, by their pure light,

Elements, Nature and Aether unite,

for to lend our words meaning.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: tvorchestvof.blogspot.com

Artist: Rafał Olbiński

FAITH II

Melody and chime reverent combine,

bursting into light,

not a sun-kindled blaze,

but one wakened by a tinder of Dawn

upon an altar wrought of

worshipful notes and greening Hope.

The Faith I forsook in fervid fury floats

upon a cyan waft,

beaming its gold to Apollo's height,

calling fearful fledglings to flight.

And one feathered flame,

Source and creation allied,

harmony and horizon on wing,

pipes a blue-grey strain that brings

forth restoring rain,

new hues to fading Summer blooms

that trace the last parched verso

of the Season's chronicle.

In a crystal drop dwells the grace that

shall crown some Autumn's

first sheaf, blessing the Circle,

though its journey be brief.

I bide, ungrateful, still, upon the Path, 

nor Hope, nor Faith in my heart,

in hands the Poet's tome

vast as his spirit, its heart open to Home.

The sounds of his soul 

I shall shall take for my victuals,

the sky's outpourings for my drink.

Sole such shall guide my steps

to substance and strength.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image source: www.pinterest.com

Artist: Vladimir Kush

VOICE

The shadow of a lost Voice converged

with my own as I ran

to catch the distance, the next drop of

a dying Sun. Fear propelled

my unreckoning self, one that perceives

not Life within stasis.

A blue mist parted, unveiling a dream of

roses that await a child's wonder

upon a ground green with legacies of

blooming and birth denied,

with thoughts she dared not think.

Yet, reminiscences were not forbidden

her. In such she revelled,

marking the hours of Night with rising

decans beneath the seamless presence

of the shimmering Eternal.

The Voice, no more a shadow, spoke its

ageless bequest:

"Heed those who have seen, who see,

the last robin merge

with the last branch, for they tell of

a wholesome transformation

that needs not man's inconstant hands

nor his courage-less heart."

"They who have heard, who hear,

a Fire cut the wind, the crimson faltering

of fledgling wings,

the music of infant feet stilled,

shedding tears of blood for Innocence

defiled know of an airless Dark."

"A thousand Suns could not sate its

black thirst. Nay, it shall claim

Flow and Tides, till word, note, step and

gaze no more touch Mirror and Eye."

"Still, silver spheres of Hope and Peace

beckon in conjunction.

Earth bends to the shape of Silence,

Nature, to the Mystery of Being.

Shall you, mortal children, as your Mother,

unbar the Portals to Light?"

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium candidum

Image: GIRL BY A WOODLAND STREAM

Source: www.pinterest.com

Artist: Edgar Barclay

DREAM IV

Stone and spate marked my birth.

Still, I grew to know leaf

and butterfly, even as the ground

swallowed my feet.

Unfurling fronds of tenderest green

set free my paths,

feathering against Autumn's

variegated crystal mirror.

Scarlet aves streak across October's

changing parchment

as bleeding arrows, scrivening lost,

lightless hours, my pulse,

upon a breeze that shall not hear me.

Of earth I am not, nor of water,

fire or sky.

I am a child of the sleepless aether.

Blossoms of journeys past

slumber in the chill forest air;

a spark of trellis of Suns and Moons

awaits me in celestial spheres.

Father's Summer roses, 

dead Stars of living coral 

and palest pink,

lie within the Mystic's soul,

layered between her memories

of joy and sorrow, 

of ascension and vanquishment.

In winged dreams I shall ride 

the updraught of her essence into a

distant vision,

into a moment of bright birth,

that I may find life amid my shadows.

© 2016 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: LE PRINCIPE D'INCERTITUDE

Source: www.pinterest.com

Artist: René Magritte