Sylvia Payne Tillitt

Over a span of nearly seven decades, educator, artist, leading public speaker, visionary world traveler, and political activist Sylvia Payne Tillitt expressed her unique and compassionate vision of life in poems, rich in the spirituality of everyday life, now included in Threads of Life: A Collection. Although she became a woman of cosmopolitan interests in the arts, education, politics, and world travel, she was born in 1915 in Coachella, California, a small desert town where date palms shaded the family dairy.

At an early age, she began to take notes on those important events in her life, reflecting her lifelong journey as a spiritual person. Sylvia felt compelled to share the varied perspectives of her journey in her poetry and photographs, as she traveled the world, raised her two children, and participated fully in the civic life of her hometown. In her poetry, she focuses on the spiritual beauty of the earth, the grandeur of mountains, and the awe-inspiring vast African Plains, among other topics.

With her own imaginative imprint, Threads of Life offers Sylvias unique interest in all aspects of life in poetry and photographs.

The music is stilled,
The mind is at rest,
Peace unending, the eternal guest.

Warming in the afterglow of love,
The family stands;
Their outstretched hands
Filled with gems of remembered joys.

The whales tooth, delicately traced,
The barbed wit, subtly placed,
Perceptive views, the scholars bent
Cathedral spires, the Holy Rood,
Contemplation, where Martyrs stood.

Stay, O Man!
The music is not stilled,
The tones are only muted
Anticipating their new release.