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    • #28969
      thoornstra
      Participant

        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.

      • #29012
        Ursula
        Participant

          Thank you thoornstra!

          More poems from you and others?

        • #29013
          thoornstra
          Participant

            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!

          • #29034
            thoornstra
            Participant

              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.

            • #29156
              thoornstra
              Participant

                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.

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