Enfold the splendor!
Let it fill your heart
And overflow;
Let its glory touch some part
Of all you know;
Let its light
Be shared and in the sharing grow more bright;
For each selfless service we can render
Makes it ours more beautifully --- the splendor.

 Click on the poem title to go to the text of this poem which has special music associated with it.

Click on the poem title to go to the text of this poem which has special music associated with it.

You and I may not be atoms,
But I think we have formed an ionic bond;
For suddently all of my electrons
Are orbiting your attractive nucleus!

Yet through despair shines hope,
And in my heart a song
Of joy not heard before
Is growing clear.
Oh, my dear ---
Knowing, holding, loving,
We are one forevermore!

You will never, never be alone ---
My love, my own,
I will come to you in countless ways
Through all your nights and days:
    Quietly as evening falls
        On curves of song,
    In colored flame, in shadows on your walls;

    Passionately in breakers white
        That surge and pound
    Against the waiting shore in wild delight;

    Tenderly in soft snowflakes
        That touch your cheek;
    In the fragrant breeze from summer lakes.

In a myriad host of other ways
Through all your nights and days
My love, my own ---
I will contrive to make my presence known.
 

For all the forces that have shaped your life
From its inception to the day we met,
I kneel in gratitude.

For every disappointment and defeat,
For bitter tears, for battles fought in vain,
I kneel in gratitude.

For all the joys that made you smile, for hours
Of happiness that cheer and lift you still,
I kneel in gratitude.

For every person you have deeply loved,
To whom you gave yourself without reserve,
I kneel in gratitude.

For all things known or unrevealed which helped
Create the soul whose beauty I now share,
I kneel in gratitude.
 

Blessed are those who are aware,
Aware of the healing warmth of the sun
While the sun still shines;
Aware of the beauty of the full-blown rose
Before it fades;
Aware of the changing facets of love
While love remains.

Blessed are those who consciously
Touch and taste and feel,
Who perceive the meaning of each experience
While it is yet theirs to explore and enjoy!
 

Whatever splendor
    You have found, glory in it...
Enfold the spendor!

Time is impulsive!
    It goes too faster stands still,
Never in-between.

Mist over the bay
    Obscures the view, but I hear
Foghorns more clearly.

The pine trees murmur
    One clear message hauntingly...
As I go to sleep.

Which is lovelier--
    The bud or the full-blown rose?
Each has its merits...
 

There is no moment quite so sweet
As that magic one when first we meet
After having been so long apart.
When you press me close against your heart
And kiss me long and deeply with no word,
Save in silent language never heard,
It is then I dimly sense the meaning
Of a love that transcends reasoning.

I watched the tide come in
And marvelled at how an unseen force
From the distant moon
Could move the water so.

Today the invisible force
Of your love
Drew me closer to you,
And brought the depth of my caring
To floodtide.

Because you love me
I climb to heights undreamed before you came.
My dearest one, I give unending thanks
For such a gift
And pray that I may guard it well
To keep it whole, inviolate, and pure.

We cannot know what varied threads of chance
Weave the fabric of our destiny,
Nor guess that seeming bitter circumstance
Is prelude to our greatest victory.

Through deterrent fog and valley mist
The far-off beauty of that shining dream
Has cast upon my path a guiding beam
That ever furnished reason to persist.

Now that I have reach the golden peak
And hold within my hand the long-sought prize,
I find that all about me there arise
Still brighter dreams and higher goals to seek.

* Written March 16, 1971, upon learning that I had been elected to the Presidency of the National Science Teachers Association