Perchance, while alone one darkening eve,
Happenstance would introduce me to one I’d heard
Brought terror and fear, and made people grieve,
When face to face and eye to eye,
With him they came (for it meant a good¬bye).
But his name was to me, just a word.

Just a word and a word no more, his name,
Death it was that I met that night,
A death that was feared just the same.
None had known and none really knew
The side of death that was really true,
The side for which death was contrite.

I analyzed death as there he stood
And was perplexed but satisfied when at last I found
Death to be nothing more than what would
Be seen as a schizoid manifestation of life
An illogical cause of so much strife
Whenever death was around

I have visited islands where,
In solemn praise of inward gods,
A mask was lifted from my Self
Revealing islands of hopes and fears;
Islands where no mortals trod
Nor humans as humans dared.

An island god is an inward god,
Like a god of the sea and a god of the sky,
It removes human masks from non-human Selves:
Masks that separate; masks that obey;
Masks that denied the godless lie
That humans as humans shared.

Thrusting through the godly waters
The island reached into blue-white skies.
Reached eternally in every moment
Carrying my reaching for heaven’s high
Reaching and removing my mortal disguise,
Taking us back – heaven’s sons and daughters.

Sheer black cliffs torment the mind.
Incessant in beauty, this tow’ring black wall
Shelters nests and birds and other things,
And shelters my body from a cold north wind.
These cliffs encompass and echo my call,
Reaching more recesses than alone I could find.

God of heaven, here on earth,
Not finding or Knowing the Self I am,
But hiding the Self and thus pretending
By taking masks and wearing them.
Mistaken for granted, but not Knowing I am
A grandfather of the Universe.

Son of heaven, here on earth,
Wearing the mask that disguised the Self,
Finding the mask before the Island
Finding the island before the Self
Finding, Knowing, and accepting my Self
As a grandchild of the Universe.