Summons

“When the sun rises each one of us is summoned
by the living and the dead to praise God.”
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

In the morning
you sent clouds towering
and drove fine ice
into the tender rose,

(its red petals scattered, 
a holocaust 
on pure white ground)

and took my breath away!

Father, I seek you
like death, 
clean and clear
in the ringing air.

Green and golden, 
long shadows flow east
and birdsong fills 
your nodding trees.

In the gentle rhythm
of the swaying wind
there I hear 
your song again.

(10/2/2012)