Charles Doss was a man on death row. He would have dreams. from these dreams he was inspired to wake up and write. When he finished writing he would go back to sleep. He didn’t know what he had written until he woke in the morning to read it. This is a very small collection of his writings. It was reported to me that, eventually over time, his sentence was commuted to life without parole. And then the dreams stopped.
I have no idea the validity of this story. It came to me decades ago. I believe it in my heart.
In this far corner of the universe
I exist serenely
With quietness in my heart
Humility in my soul
I know the grandeur that awaits
I know the time is pending
When I shall slough off this mortal illusion
When I shall leap from plane to plane
When I shall live within the breast
Of all things
When I shall fill up creation
And wend my way home at last
To the ultimate God.
We shall be saved at the end
By qualities of hope and love.
And laughter and courage
And exotic dreams.
These we shall store in our bosom
A jot at a time.
A quality hence and hither
And this illusion of grief
And all these pangs of anguish
Will be triumphless.
And we shall be saved at the end
By qualities of hope and love
The existence of joy
does not depend on laughter.
It never concerns itself with happiness
as most of us understand it.
Never believe that joy
is a condition of mirth,
That depends upon human interpretation.
Joy is the flood of sunlight
that rushes upon our night,
and expels with great power
the darkness of a soul.
The greatest voyages of my life
are not by map or chart,
but are the splendid expeditions
of mind and soul and heart.
I hardly ever stir at all
contained within an acre,
and yet I make fantastic treks
vouch safed by my maker.
One never is immobilized
or ever quite confined,
who scales the Matterhorns of soul
and sails the sea of mind.
All in this earth worth having
is to be found in oneself.
As for the rest: it is chaff and baubles.
Quantities of air that we grab at frenziedly
and fetch up with nothing.
Nothing under the sun is quite so hard to grasp,
as that we ourselves are the treasures
that we so desperately seek.
Perhaps there is no reason for us to live.
Or, if any reason exists
it is buried so deeply
in the colossal bosom of God,
that we shall never uncover it.
Yet I ask you to live
as if the reason were known.
And the reason is this:
we must live in order to love
and in order to perpetuate life.
This is our curse and our blessing
and our splendid opportunity.
That veering through the darkness
without map or compass or guide,
we move proudly, gracefully.
As if we knew our destination.
As if the way were flooded with light.
By Charles Doss