Poetry

[thoornstraParticipant]

The First Hour

I sit and meditate
in that first hour of morning
when no wind stirs, no engine roars,
no jet passes overhead;
when the first feathered angels
lift their songs to heaven,
the world breathes free again,
and all things are reborn
as what they really are,
nearer to the image
in which each one was formed,
the living Word; the hour
when Truth reveals
its radiant soul
in Beauty.

[UrsulaParticipant]

Thank you thoornstra!

More poems from you and others?

[thoornstraParticipant]

Infinite

I pause now to consider
how these shining waters
reveal all things above, below,
in the earth and in the sky,
if any has the eye
to read the secret alphabet
which the wind describes:
The intricate cross-hatchings
of tiny wavelet-ripples
pulsing toward the riverbank,
equally reflected back
to meet those coming in;
fluid geometric rhythms,
patterns without beginning
or end…
Shimmering infinities,
rhythmic-clashing symmetries
mirroring so faithfully
the spirits of the sky.

And I contemplate
how each stone is speckled
in shadow and light;
how each one is like
a separate painting,
its own color-palette world.
And I delight
in the endless shades of green
and yellow in the trees,
the sheer variety,
the multitude of leaves
flashing over me:
near-infinity.
Yet, if any one of these
falls,
you know of it.

Infinite…
shadow upon shadow,
light upon light,
these interwoven, delicate
miracles flashing
in the sun and wind;
these stones, these ripples,
this Creation without end!

[thoornstraParticipant]

The Grove

After long exploration I come to rest
in the inmost grove of the Giant Forest.
Nothing stirs; peace reigns in stillness.
A soft, thick carpet muffles all sound;
the trees soar so high from ground
that the sound of the wind rushing through their crowns
are as but a whisper drifting down
like tidings from some distant land
where man has never been.

I look up in rapture at the sight
of green-vaulted spaces filled with light,
a natural temple, a living cathedral
whose soaring arches span the heavens
like the World-Tree of ancient legend,
Yggdrasil, sprung from Earth’s very center,
its roots supporting her foundations,
its branches holding up the sky,
embracing all worlds and bridging between them;
a temple Creator and creature may meet in,
a living sign of the indwelling Presence
in tangible things one can touch and see,
yet with no loss of awe at the Mystery,
the sense of the Eternal’s transcendence
of all earthly dimensions and limits.

I stand at their bases; they’re wider than buildings!
The arms of ten men won’t stretch full around them.
I stand at a distance, but still there’s no guessing;
the eye has no yardstick, no scale to compare with.
The arms and the eyes of a man cannot measure
a thing seem sprung from another dimension.
Yet, there is harmony, balance, proportion,
reason, order, uncanny perfection,
such that I am given to wonder…
How can thousands of tons of organic matter
sprout from the ground and float as if weightless,
sailing high over the rest of the forest
like a cloud in the sky, a thing made of vapor?

And could they speak, what could they tell us?
Our lives, our works must seem to them mushrooms
sprung up overnight and gone in a morning;
we high-metabolic chattering primates
caught up in the whirl of an sudden brainstorm,
spinning out phantomy webs of ideas,
inscriptions and images, cities and temples
rising and falling while these remain standing,
rooting and growing secure through the ages…
How can we commune with such as these?
Their line is among the oldest still living;
dinosaurs may have fed on their branches.
Some are as old as our civilizations,
seedlings sprung when Pharoah ruled Egypt,
in vigor of youth when David sang praises,
already great when Christ walked among us,
much as they are when the white man came,
bridging millenia, epochs together.
Time’s very substance, the Earth’s living record,
the witness of the past in the present,
scattering cones, the seeds of futures.

[thoornstraParticipant]

I found a tiny swallow
like a fallen angel
lying in the dust
there beside the road,
hit by passing traffic;
no one even knows…
Kneeling in the sand,
I held it in my hand,
felt its dusky wings
outstretched in my fingers;
soft and supple feathers,
elegant fine shoulders
beautifully streamlined,
made to cut the wind;
blended form and function,
evidence of wisdom.
A rare and noble creature,
so like a living flame;
the spirit flies away,
and yet the form remains,
bearing still the impress
of what it once expressed;
the beauty and the passion
which once wielded it.
But even as I held it,
somehow I knew that it
could not be extinguished;
that the flame burns on
beneath some brighter Sun.

[Author]

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