Behind the Veil The beauty of a morning sky As birds awaken us with a song To make our heart heave and sigh Is sometimes too dazzling and strong For our mortal eyes to behold And the soft nurmuring breeze In our ears speaks to us of days old That young restless souls fail to seize. There is in us gods in the making That cannot wait to burst into life Like burgeoning buds in the spring Eager for the light, defiant of strife. Though born into a prison of flesh, We're endowed with spirit immortal Barred from heaven, in illusion's mesh Ensnared, in search of the lost portal. Every flower that bllooms delights Us with a subtle scent of divinity And every tree that in the night's Whispering voice rustles gently Under the stars' ancestral shimmering Instils in us a sense of limitless wonder At the vastness of the universe unfolding Mysteries for our inner eye to ponder. Alas! No sooner born to life's greatness Made manifold by the creative mind, In nature's overflowing sap of goodness We seek instead the lees that bind The flesh to weal and woe and not wisdom. Issued forth from the darkness primeval Into salvation's light, into another Sodom Of sinfulness we sink for damnation eternal. Oh, pride and shameless vanity is our blight, Never bending, never yielding to reason, Forever striving against divine light Willing ourselves into the jaws of oblivion. Oh, how pitiful is man's self-inflicted plight, Made into a quagmire of desperate confusion, Of toil and tears, of abject hearts contrite All because we choose to reject the inner vision. In our long yet short-lived summers We tread on youth's green grass Along the banks of smiling rivers, Pensive of mood, for the days pass Away and forever will be gone Like a vision of beauty so great That it seems unreal, chanced upon One fading twilight decreed by Fate. Oh, what wouldn't we give to be young Again or like children wander once more From vale to vale, with a joyful song In our heart and no pain forever more! To love and be loved even for a moment Is as precious as the most priceless jewel And life without a kiss is but a long lament That sickens the soul that no one can quell. If not young or a child or a butterfly At least a bird on the wing that gloriously From hilltop to hilltop can merrily fly Untrammelled by the cares of humanity. To think llike gods and to gaze at the sky Earthbound with envious eyes at the stars We cannot reach but through our inner eye, Oh, what a pity! What a sad lot is ours! And yet, in all the sorrow of our days, When the mind takes flight and soars, We catch a glimpse of things that amaze And in trancelike daze, oblivious to the laws Of baleful gravity, we come face to face With what lurks behind the deceitful veil: Shed are our blinkers and of Illusion no trace Is left but the dazzling beauty of the Holy Grail! Claudio Wye Lloret de Mar, Spain