My Father always told me "Son,

It's in the little things,

The things that all too quickly run

Between your grasping fingers,

The looks that barely linger,

In these you'll find a steady joy

Just like when you were just a boy,

When time ran slowly

Unhinder'd by the fear of ends

Beginnings, and the like."

Unsullied time ran like a lad

That could never be bother'd

When I'm with you Time does not exist.

Upon my grandpa's hearth there was a clock

Of sturdy oaken make. It told the time

As clocks are known to do. The dusty block

That was that hearth-place always had a grime

Of charred remains of fire my grandpa swept

And threw away.  The warm and woody smell

Of those late night fires ever o'er crept

Me, as the wraith of sleep did mix and swell

With ash and play upon my nostrils.

I'll ever remember, when my children come,

And their's come after, grandpa's smile,

As he pick'd up his never dusty tome:

The Holy Bible, and read Isaiah,

In that old, low-toned voice, I came to love.

"He shall grow up before him..."

My grandpa read with that unaffected, stately rove of voice

That rises like a tender plant

From out the soils of peace, hope, love, forgiveness:

Words that from most are merely mindless chant,

They were not so for him, God as my witness.

He held that old, dear Bible so, so close;

It safely held him to the very close.

And though that old hearth clock has long stopp'd ticking

And that warm glowing fire has long stopped burning,

The Flame atop Mount Zion is always burning,

And in His glowing Love, no shadow of turning.

Behold the many splendored One, High and lifted up!

The Brightness of His glory radiates from wells of light

That never quench themselves and are never pent up.

Wrestle with god, ye mortals, while ye may

For soon the light of day gives way,

Then comes the longest days of longest Night.

My wand'ring time draws nigh again,

I feel it in my bones

And deep within my heart again,

O must I go alone?

Must I leave you who stood beside me?

Must I strike the blow,

Drive the nail into

The skin that stood so close and dearly?

Perhaps the wilds will not roar

As once they did before?

With frigid cold and lonely wastes,

'Round the plutonian shore?

And yet I may not live,

For this ground did give

A harvest sure and fine

With sweet and rosy wine.

Still....Still the Waste stands firm

Monolithically untouched and strong

And howls like rav'nous wolves

Beckoning me to War, headlong,

Pursuing, testing my strength.

Some man-like part of me Must rise

With strength to stand Or strength to leave and wander

To find the path I once began.

In palest fields of blanketed snow I awoke

And to my numbing ears a whisper spoke

Perhaps a wolf on the wind, a howling breeze,

Or even so, the ice and bowing trees,

In deepest conclave, speaking ancient words,

Words known once, now only spoken by the birds,

That flitted amid balmy days of spring;

Now only howling breezes and wolves do sing:

The wolfish wind within my heart unbroken,

Spread abroad like cancer: heart of stone,

The grinding ice that chills me to the bone.

I left my Father's gods behind

And wander'd on the ways that wind

My own frontier ahead of me,

My Egypt-Land of slavery

At my back, the gods of youth

And family flung away for truth.

The chains of Egypt held my heart

In hardened coldness, Unbelov'd

The money, fame, and...