John Herlihy Shares Christmas at Book Readers Heaven! - The beginning and for Evermore...

 

-- Christmas Poem -- John Herlihy I love wrapping presents, And this poem is a gift. On Christmas day I do present, This poem your heart to uplift. Before it was even written, The poem was already there. My heart was already smitten, The poem still to write, do I dare. Dare I do, as I take the plunge, All my holy sentiments to expunge. Expunge from the void into open air, My heart bleeds, but not from despair. The gift opened, the ribbon thrown away, Your heart uplifted on this Christmas Day. - - - - - - (c) John Herlihy 20 December 2019

 

-- A GIFT ALWAYS FOUND -- John Herlihy Inside the hidden space of unexpected places, A gift always found. Inside the silence between stilled wings, My heart sings. In the glow of those distant stars, My sense of wonder jars. In the darkness deep space retains, Mystery reigns. There in the depths of mountain caves, Truth that saves. In the winding corridors of deep sleep, Dreams stir deep. In the heart of my deepest day-dreams, I see my bravery it seems. In old age when the eyes begin to blur, Old longings stir. Within the misty rain of our lost hope, The divine rope. In all the multiplicity of the world’s soul, A seamless whole. Footprints left behind in the snow as trail, Read as braille. In the utter darkness of the earth’s night, Solitary rays of light. In the infinite patience of time’s groove, A stone worn smooth. In the quiet of the night a coyote or owl around, To utter a lonely sound. Inside the hidden space of unexpected places, A gift always found. - - - - - -

-- A SENSE OF PEACE --

By John Herlihy

Ah yes, the elusive feeling of calm,

That longed for sense of peace that feels like balm.

Ah yes, how it eludes us there in the distance,

No matter what we seek, how hard the persistence.

Beyond the horizon, across the meadow,

The peace of dreams and the peace of snow.

We feel a sense of peace in things we don’t fully know,

The peace of the forest, with its sunbeams and deer,

The peace that emerges in the absence of fear.

Where is the sense of peace in the old sickle of moon,

With a face all cracked and ruined, casting borrowed light?

Moonglow has its moment, but peace is not part of its sight.

We know all too well what fills the vacuum that appears,

Whenever any true sense of lasting peace disappears.

At first the sense of hollowness fills the empty space,

An unease makes the heart feel an abandoned place.

Conflict and discord lift their weary head with sparks of fire,

And not the mellow creaminess that peace may inspire.

Into the hole left behind crawls the tendrils of bitterness,

Into the ragged edges left behind no fingers of tenderness.

Anxiety and worry take up the slack with peace left behind,

Misery and sorrow likely to fill up the orphaned mind.

Impatience rushes into the breach with feelings of discontent,

Discontent brings its shadowy shroud giving cause to lament.

Will I ever again take true comfort in a sense of peace?

Will I ever again have the feeling of such sublime release?

The answer that I had searched for was soon to come,

There in the tapestry of nature in those shades of green spun.

As I gazed across the landscape, I beheld myriad shades of green;

Whether in a newborn leaf or an aging tree, they betrayed noble mien.

What is it about the color green that inspires this feeling of peace,

Call it a feeling of rapture, otherworldly, seemingly without cease.

The blue sky shocks us, enthrall us, as do mountains and oceans,

Golden wheat, the earth brown as tree bark, the red rose all have their say.

The white of starlight, the pale moon, even a sparkling fountain,

All take second place to the peaceful color of evergreens on a mountain.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ancient Prophecies, Modern Illusions By John Herlihy

 

Ancient prophecies shine on the horizon with a mysterious glow, Comforting words that fall into our hearts as with a gift to bestow. The prophets spoke these prophecies as messengers of the future, Harbingers of future promise tied together with a flimsy old suture. For truth to tell, promises are one thing and they are meant to be kept; With promises broken, they are a thing over which people have wept. Yet, what these stately patriarchs have portended down the millennia Have evolved as noble promises now broken in the envisioned utopia. These prophecies still echo down the corridors of progressive time; They continue to shine with light that each of us understands as mine. Pretend that you are offering to a person the gift of a secret that is real; Even the modern individual will gladly succumb to its cognitive appeal. Consider for a moment the blessed vision of a heavenly paradise, In counterpoint to the earthly paradise Mother Nature has devised. It is perfectly natural people seek that which will make them happy, Witness, for example, the infant baby gurgling merrily in its nappy. Consider as another case in point the desire for personal fulfillment; If we work hard and are successful, it will lead to sure contentment. Most people delve deeply within, to find motivation to happily live; Most people seek balance in their lives; they take but they also give. Then there is the issue of our two-sided human nature to disclose. Both good and evil lurk within us; this point no one would oppose. People of all generations delve within themselves a cure to uncover The evils of their alter-ego within, they have been made to discover

Ancient prophecies never really touched upon modern-day illusions;

We were never warned against the rise of contemporary delusions.

We pride ourselves on our ability to advance grand new technologies;

Evolutionary man is progressive man, creating unscripted anthologies.

We see ourselves as making progress with tech advances in medicine;

The modern world has come into its own with the discoveries of Edison.

The collective outpouring of world literature has enriched human hearts;

Countries the world over have encouraged the development of fine arts.

What about the enduring myth of human evolution from primal apes,

Encouraging many people to consider the human soul just sour grapes.

Yes, our critical and innovative thinking skills have evolved over time,

But we will need more than quantum mechanics for the soul to shine.

The ultimate illusion of the modern world lies in its false sentimentality;

Modern science accepts the premise of the physical world as sole reality.

Anything that extends beyond the nuts and bolts of purely physical matter

Remains denied at the outset and is considered a fiction of the Mad Hatter.

Let us place all of our earthly assumptions at the altar of human illusion;

Let us surrender our ghosts to the darkness and escape all our delusions.

The ancient prophecies had it right when they proclaimed ancient mystery,

That has endured thru the millennia to arrive unscathed in modern history.

 

Angel on the Horizon

 By John Herlihy 

I finally met in person a true celestial angel;

He smiled as we have read in the sacred evangel.

I am a simple soul that he should reveal himself to me.

In all his luminous, universal glory for me clearly to see.

At first, I saw him standing there alone on the horizon,

Gazing benevolently upon me before I had a chance to run.

Wings with full extension in resplendent feathered regalia,

Seeming to reach all the way from Kansas City to Mongolia.

You can imagine the sight simply took away my breath;

I stood there as though awaiting the prophecies of Seth.

Needless to say, at such an event, what does one say.

Howdy? How you doin’? Or simply utter donkey bray?

I can tell you most prosaically I was stunned, floored;

All questions on the hereafter vanished that I had stored.

My own silence brought me back down onto the earth;

For one brief moment, I felt as innocent as at my birth. 

Standing aloft, the angel diminished the horizon of this world;

As he approached, he seemed to dwindle in size as if unfurled.

Expecting him to get even bigger the nearer he approached,

The opposite happened, reducing in size as if in faint reproach.

In the distance, his refined features blended into blinding light;

His luminosity glowed like a sun to outshine everlasting night.

Forget about any idea you may have to project earthly time;

Eternity had clearly stepped into the moment to become mine.

Feelings of utter joy entered through every aperture and pore;

My soul replenished with mercy, wishing to fall down and adore.

How ready we are to give up the world and fall down in disbelief;

Our petty fears vanished, all worries gone, nothing left but relief.

How for many years, I have endured frustration and suffered loss,

Expectations but shattered mirrors, our hopes but winter frost.

The mystery of life leaving us awash with questions and doubt;

We think we know how to act without a clue what life is about. 

As I stood there quaking in my boots, he put his hand on his heart;

His breathing was even and his angelic countenance smiled at last.

I am the messenger of truth, he then intoned as sweetly as a song;

I bring you good tidings, he murmured as deep sounding as a gong.

What you are witnessing is the world of spirit that is always there;

What you experience within your heart, he affirmed, is forever near.

Close your eyes, he uttered further, and you will see the stars of night;

Open your soul to God, he affirmed, and you will gaze on eternal light.

At times, the dream of reality doesn’t match the reality of the dream;

A crack opens into time’s continuum and life is not what it may seem.

The luminosity of the beloved angel slowly, ever so slowly, dimmed;

Until I finally stood alone once again as a solitary man who has sinned.

Already I was missing him, wondering what happened, was he truly gone;

Alone with myself once again, I became conscious who I was, named John.

But indeed, the truth was there all around me, nature and spirit and light;

I now walk across God’s earth, to the very horizon, out of my own night.