Michael Shepherd Poems

Often, I awaken to myself,
as from this earthly body lifted up;
and feel external to all other things,
myself the single knower past all thought;
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If only
everyone about to pull the trigger of a gun
imagined the shell hitting his own family
what a world
...

Humility this day is
that she has passed all thought
in stillness; beyond waiting
rests her being.
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A bee, it’s said, in its whole working life
brings to the hive a vast
treasure of obedience:
a teaspoon-full of honey.
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We do not have to seek for love
nor fear it ever go:
but simply, rest within ourself;
then, love perforce must flow:
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In the hour of our departure O Lord

In our beginning is our end
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There is only one single way. Go into yourself.
Search for the reason that bids you write;
find out whether it is spreading out its roots
in the deepest places of your heart,
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'There has been death in the morning,
death in the noon-time,
on the highways and skyways,
death by faceless people
...