A drenching rain
Or a stiff swelling heat
A great high fog
Or a mountain's cool steam
An image of a rainbow's hour
And of streets deep by stone towers
Clouds high and blue mountains wide
A bird's soft grace
Is like a love I once had
I held it soft in my hand
And then it flew away
With the clouds misty eyes
A drenching sight
And hence understanding
In these high hours
Of gray mist's companionship
Their’s is the throne
Of love's soft wings
Be among the mist
As any with a heart is
But the pain of life
Is that the mist holds not
Nor can it ever hold
The people we hold dear
To be around us always
But we must know
That as they live on the bay of strange lands
That they are happy
Yet never for us to share in that bliss
Which we wish for them
On the fair islands
And time shaped seashores
Of the world's great plains
And its kind old cities
The clock of wisdom
Speaks from the end of a tall staircase
The path to find it
Is long and steep
The pain of many falls
On this great stairwell
Is the cost of life
And the pain of living
Yet it is better to suffer
This very pain of wisdom's demand
Than to be as dust
And hence not to be at all
Though I cannot hold
All the persons I love
And will love
In one place for myself
I must renounce that cruel desire
As love in its truest form
Wants the good of whom the person is loving
And this good cannot always be the good
Of the one who loves
So through this is the pain of love
As we walk the staircase
Of dusty heros
And the fair hand strokes
Of every heroine
Who has blessed this world
Since they all held this
This unique pain of love
And yet did not relinquish it
At the top of the stairs
Is the high clock of wisdom
And its wooden framework
Is a masterpiece
Of subtle interwoven streams of its forms
As it was crafted by the divine
Since the beginning of time
From the many pains of the stairs
It is tempting to say
Why not renounce love?
Since it brings me so much pain?
Yet when one sees the great clock
And finds its truth in grace
One knows the pain was worth the cost
As one stammers with awe
At the high passions of glory
As the clock shows us the order
Of all the heavens above
And the great moral law within
This is a blessing greater
Than to be with any one soul
For it is to be with all souls forever
Of all times and places
Who paid the costs of love
And choose it above its harsh cousin hatred
As the two have both been competing for souls
Since all times began
Amid the sweet dawn of ancient light
It is to see the faces
Of these sweet souls from across the ages
As they hold on
To the mantle of the clock known as wisdom
And stand together in the blessedness of song
And the grace of fair chanting
Across the evening of a tender fall day
As the leaves show their deep colors
And diverse forms
Amid the high drenching sun
Beside a temple in the light
Of a great fire under the columns
And the mist which sweeps
It sweeps, it is fair colors moving ever upward
Ever kinder
Ever stronger
And hence it moves
It moves forever
And into the night
(The Clock of Wisdom - EB)