A Broken Winged Bird

We are often like birds
Who do not recognize their own wings
Stuck wandering the material world

Unaware that within us
Lies the capacity to fly
To soar above the confusion and nearsightedness
Which define life on the ground

We instead sully our wings
With attachment to earthly things
With criticism and hopelessness
Guilt, fear and blame


We busy ourselves in the lives of others
As a way of distracting ourselves
From what we think we lack
From what we believe we are incapable of doing

As a way of distracting ourselves
From the vast, impenetrable distance
Which we perceive between us and His light

But this distance we perceive
Is our greatest vain imagining
Our ego's strongest battalion

For it keeps us blind to the gifts
Which are latent within us
Gifts which have graciously and generously
Been bestowed upon us

Blind to our creativity, to our strengths
To our own inner nobility, our connection to God
Our wings

Our purpose on this earth
Is to break free of the shackles of self
Which hold us down and deceive us
To embrace the possibility 
That we can do things which we do not feel capable of doing

For only when we embrace this truth

The truth that we are inherently noble and celestial
That our hearts were created
To soar in the heaven of remembrance of Him
Guided only by the breezes of His Will

And the Day Star of His love


Will we truly embrace His Light within us
And learn to fly

"Say: Deliver your souls, O people, from the bondage of self, and purify them from all attachment to anything besides Me. Remembrance of Me cleanseth all things from defilement, could ye but perceive it." - Baha'u'llah

Abasement and Nobility

Neither of these poems have a title, but the first one reminds me of the beginning of a prayer by Baha'u'llah which says "O Son of Spirit! Noble have I created thee, yet thou has abased thyself." And the second poem, reminds me of the second half of that prayer "Rise then unto that for which thou was created." 

(Poem 1)

A flower grows, blossoms

Shares its fragrance with the world

And then dies

Its purpose, to touch hearts

To share its beauty and nobility

In its short life

It takes its glory, its purpose

From the radiant sun 

Its life force

But what if that flower, were unable

To see or recognize

Its own light

What if it could see, the love 

The joy on the faces of the people

Who saw it

But it couldn't comprehend, understand

What they were seeing or feeling,

Their love

Its perspective, veiled by its blindness

The gift it was to the world

Unrecognized

Only emptiness, did it feel

Ashamed at what it wasn't

What it couldn't see

How does one, teach a candle

To recognize its flame

Its grandeur

A flower, to smell its perfume

Its glory

Or a blind man, to open his eyes

And see

(Poem 2)

What I see every day

All things that I do

Everything in this world

Gains its existence from You

I can push myself down

I can see myself as small

But Your glory lives inside me

Standing strong, bright and tall

The silent resistance 

Of self criticism and fear

Only serve to hold me back

And keep me from drawing near

No matter how small I feel

Or how little I think I deserve to fly

The capacity and responsibility live within me

And in the depths of my soul there is no I

So please tell me who I am

Let me read Your words as true

For my inner beauty and reality

Are only known through You

A Mermaid Child

A precious child

Born to a king

Loved and cherished

The most blessed gift

To hear her sing

Her soul spoke to you

The angels could be heard

This gem within her

Manifested itself

In the Glory of His Word

But the world ensnared her

Trapped her with its sights

For envy and attachment

She gave up her soul

For worldly and material delights

She gained happiness for a moment

But the veils of ego’s view

Blinded her to the truth

And she forgot the beauty

Of the Light she had been born to

Imprisonment

I found my soul imprisoned today
Away from Your light and Your grace
My ego's good intentions
Wove shackles I hadn't traced

My mind often drifted in prayer
Joy slowly stopped intervening
As the light of compassion dimmed
My service lost much of its meaning

The insideous webs of blame
And judgement's encroaching presence
Forced all meaning from my pain
All growth drained out of its essence

But now that I've found it again
I pray for Your aid and assistance
To build a new prison with walls and guards
Against my ego's insistence

Set free my glorious soul
Let it fly on the wings of Your love
And never again let it fall victim
To the dross which saddened Noah's dove