ONCE

  What once I saw as a transcendent light
  That brightened my then cold and lonely soul,
  Illuminating me with mystic sight,
  Revealed a vision that would make me whole—

  Though only for a day or two until
  The dull, bleak sublunary trance returned,
  For visions are not subject to one’s will,
  Or not by any means that I have learned.

  What yet remains in memory still glows
  As hope that I may someday see beyond
  That veil of mystery where no one goes
  Without a sacred sorcerer’s magic wand.

       Yet glad enough am I that once I saw
       What seemed a realm of Light and Love and Awe.

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