CLOSE THE CIRCLE

 

 You won’t find yourself

Until you have found God.

You won’t find God

Until you have found yourself.

Close the circle.

 II

When you find life,

Realizing it within yourself,

When you have found the way,

Then you will know the Way is in you.

Close the circle.

 III

When you keep sifting for the truth,

You will see find it looking through you.

It hasn’t been recognized for eons.

But when the Wheel that has made

Countless rounds, weaving your story,

Makes its last round, it reveals your glory.

Close the circle.

 IV

When your thirst finds itself satisfied,

You will know that the water was inside.

You will have wandered through many deserts,

You will then see fountains there all the while.

Close the circle.

 V

When you have shoveled all the deserts’ sands,

You will find nourishment for many lands.

When you find exactly what you’re looking for,

“Behold, the Beast inside!”

Then you will be looking at YOU.

Close the circle.

VI

In your dreams, you see sublime, then frightening images

That disturb many of your waking hours.

In your dreams, you often run from bestial creatures.

Or you long for celestial waters to cover you.

Close the circle.

 VII

You peer into self-created corridors of darkness,

Straining the Soul's ear as the little bird sings.

Taxing the mind’s eye. Hush. The little one sings.

She sings such lovely, harmonious melodies

From somewhere far away yet very nearby.

Far away, yet near, somewhere, within the soul

 VIII

When you have finally found her,

You will then be at the end,

The beginning of your quest.

Your zest is the quest for life.

The little bird will then be able

To spread her wings and fly.

Close the circle.

 IX

When she is miraculously

Liberated from the cage

That your mind has trapped

Her freedom in,

Then you will understand

The origin of your dreams.

And you will understand

The many, many, many suns.

Close the circle.

 X

When you sometimes feel like

Death is near, no, here now.

Ready to overtake you,

To replace your life with it.

You wonder why you feel a

Strange exhilarating joy at

The possibility of death, a

Stepping-stone, life, death;

Death, life.

Close the circle.

XI

Such alien and familiar

Subliminal melodies she sings.

They thrill you like they are your

Songs, songs you have sung.

Having gotten lost in the

Maze of misinterpreting life,

You neglected to cultivate what

Has always been the lyrics of the soul.

Close the circle.

 XII

But when you struggle and pry

On the wrong doors,

She faints from loving sorrow,

She falls to the floor.

The flour of your soul. But she is

Always revived by a Power

That is her own. She is the reigning

Queen; she is the Queen of the Soul.

Close the circle.

 XIII

She scratches sometimes just to

Get your attention.

When you find yourself taking

The wrong roads.

She’s rising to break free. Set her free

From the cage of ignorance.

From sheer grief, she falls to the

Floor, disturbing the soul.

Close the circle.

 XIV

The bird sings her woeful melodies;

She is song. She must sing.

She will sing; she is Queen. She is

Faithful, dutiful, beautiful.

She must sing. You cannot live

Without song in the soul.

She occupies her place regally.

She is guardian of the soul.

Close the circle.

XV

When in the beginning you started

Your very long, yet short,

Journey to where you are going –

Where you have already been,

You have the answer then to

What you are looking for.

You left your answer on your journey

That will bring you to it again.

Close the circle.

 XVI

The point in the journey from

Which you began

Is the point in the journey

Where the Prodigal Son ends.

The end is the beginning, and

The beginning is the end.

The circle of life is LOVE.

You will meet yourself again.

Close the circle.

 XVII

Your destination is your

Beginning; find it again.

When you find it, you will be

At the beginning again.

When you find the beginning in

Making your rounds in the circle,

You will see the One in whose image

You are made, the images you have seen.

Close the circle.

 XVIII

You will know the riddles that you

Can interpret in your dreams.

You will know the abominable characters

That disturbed your dreams.

When you come to know who is in the

Middle of the circle,

You will know why, then, and you, too,

Will sing what the lady bird sings.

 XIX

When you have opened the portal

Resident in the Soul,

Then, you will know and understand

What makes you sometimes feel so old.

The answers enlarged themselves

But remained untold,

Because they were answers to a

Question, which question is Soul.

Close the circle.

~~Mary Frances Handy (Before-1982)

(Mary Handy Moore)