APPENDIX I: Multi-Person Poems
Psalm
I was the youth that lives forever...
I was born again in summer’s fire,
and summers always filled my heart--
Each warm breeze was the breath of God
and each sun-rushed day his kiss of hope,
sending me ever forth in love:
Relentless, permeating love,
for everything for everyone forever...
Upon seas of peace and roads of hope
I was sent to spread this kindling fire--
Feeling always close and chosen by God,
Who gave my brave just-made man’s heart,
This faithful, sunburst-strong child’s heart
which roared and rang with brilliant love:
Blessing the earth but following God,
Filled with a sense of now and forever,
Warmed with the heat of sweet soul-fire,
Knowing each moment I was saved by hope.
In days of light and nights of hope
I smiled through life with faith and a pure heart,
Down leaf-rainy streets amid stars’ fire,
Looking at strangers with dove’s eyes and love,
I held in warm hands the best of forever,
Met heaven laughing, and was a child of God:
A strange and secret, all-enfolding God
Whose presence filled the air I breathed with hope--
Each moment was graced with the weight of forever,
Joy pulsed through me with each beat of my heart...
I lived in an ether of simple love,
and danced among the tongues of sacred fire.
I sang in the rain and prayed by the fire
and was foolish, but a fool for God:
My only goal was to learn how to love,
To see good in others, filled with the hope
of innocence; And always my young heart
leapt, thrilled with the promise of Forever.
In those bright days God himself graced my heart
With the gifts of love and wages of hope,
and with holy fire I thought could burn forever...