To My Grandchildren

In time you’ll find, at once or by degrees,
the light within the heart grows dark in most.
Dazzled by the light of day,
consumed by commonplace complexities,
a bewildered and bewildering host
would have you turn their way
to personal visions of some purer light,
the kind that would benight
the heart in absolutes and casuistries.

O my children, the light of which I speak
knows not of hatred, wrath, or bitterness,
nor makes a mockery of the meek
just to magnify one’s own success,
nor does it simmer with a sensual heat,
where self-indulgence deepens self-deceit.

This light, emerging sui generis,
and touching time from out of time,
tells the Ego that it “Is!”
and judges every era’s paradigm.

Its depth and breadth are measureless;
it’s the source of life and art,
the origin of consciousness—
the Mind within the heart.

  Through Self’s Veneer

  Foreword

  About Robert J. Nolan

  chapbooks-online.com

  © Robert J. Nolan, 2010