New Millennium:
Old & New

SWEET TIME

Time:
Desert in flower;
You cannot hold her back.
She conquers that loss,
Reverses that curse,
And drowns the pain
Born in us.

I reach for you,
Sweet time,
Hold me close!

You can quell those devils
Dwelling yet
Within us.

from NEW WORLD UNLIMITED:
MIRRORS OF THE WISTFUL DREAMER (1980)

QUIET TIME

I cannot write a word
Or choose a rhyme.
But I listen
To my own quiet time.
I believe
In silence there is a song.

from NEW WORLDS UNLIMITED:
MIRRORS OF THE WISTFUL DREAMER (1980)

NIGHT

Night envelopes me like a cocoon:
I am the caterpillar
only vaguely threatening to be a butterfly
hoping to hide the past -
to shroud it in mystery
like the man in the iron masque.
I am judge and judged in one long, tearful,
fearful trial.

Until I let the confrontation die.
make of my own flesh
the gown of the graduate:
student of the world,
in which I, self-crucified, rise again!

WHERE I BELONG

I do not want to sing my sorrow;
You have heard it all before.
It is the song of silence I want to borrow
The quiet of a field covered by snow;
The tune the wind plays
Blowing up small hills from below.

When that sky is slate blue
All that exists is you
Walking along by my side,
Piercing me like this cold with your song,
Then drawing me out of this chill
Into your arms where I belong.

QUITE A STORM 

The warm days wane.
The cold, dark progression of time
Stains our lives with a gathering of tears--
In these eyes the frigid wind sears.
A constant storm passes before us.
The minutes fall like rain!

Published in NEW WORLDS UNLIMITED:
VOICES OF THE MAJESTIC SAGE (1984)

EDWARD’S CLEANERS 

Sitting among the racks of garments:
Men’s suits, dresses, and dresses, and blouses and shirts;
Gray, green, black, spotted and striped--
In the being of each I see lives
Which we, like practical theologians, must cleanse.

From: published in
NEW WORLDS UNLIMITED:
VOICES OF THE MAJESTIC SAGE  (1984)

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© Copyright, 2006, Mary Barnet.
All right reserved. Reprinted by permission