Green Hills

Green hills
embroidered
mist rich
rising ridge
fog filled
plunging fields
cattle
black weightless
rise poised
on bare bank
grazing
the grass of
heaven

Black Night

Black night 

shrouds my sight,

stills to silence

my failing breath.

Do you recall how,

by fierce day consumed,

passion's eye conveyed

love's light

deep into our beating hearts?

Glance up!

Oh, stretch back your neck,

raise 

your sleepy eyes

and see how the tree,

thrusting to sky 

dark branches, dons 

the starry cloak 

of night.

Yahweh's Voice (Psalm 29)

Yahweh's voice through endless seas

convulses terebinth, trembles trees,

primeval forests compels to bend

to majesty proclaimed

from His highest seat

on the rising wind

****

Top Image:A Wind-Storm in the California Forest, after a sketch by John Muir

laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com

Bottom Image: A terebinth tree, common to the Middle East

Starry Night

Night fills the valley.

Swarming armies rise to crest

to fiery west.

The battle is done.

Tumbling stars overturning

pale winter's stark sun.

Image: NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day, 2009 May 9, "Starry Night in Brazil. "

Gate of Heaven

Through rolling green hills, in the bright winter dawn

together we’ll go  to this wide winter lawn

over trails anointed by generations of tears

we’ll bring your still heart and at last face our fears.

For this is the field of our lingering pain

terminus for the somber parade

bodies blessed, broken and dressed for the grave.

But then, when the living have gone to warm homes,

you’ll stay in this place under the bright, cold dome

and wait ‘neath the grass of this wind-swept plain

for what will come next;  you'll rise once again.

For this is the field of our lingering pain

terminus for the somber parade

bodies blessed, broken and dressed for the grave.

In the End

In the end

will my I rise

like cranes flying

through obdurate fog,

keen eyes splitting the milky sky, 

swimming the windy sea 

to clearer air beyond

high dawn's 

looming 

trees?

Before the Funeral

Mountains
surround me.

Black ridges
scrape the sky.

Raw lacerations.

Gone are the songs of
hopeful winter birds,

gone to the mountains
of the sun.

In the valley of the moon,
bitter desolation.

Crisis

I look for you in winter’s light

but your face I cannot see.

In spring I found you hidden high

in the living green of the tallest tree.

But now in winter's still, grey sky

for you with aching heart I seek.

Where have you gone? Oh, show me your face

and rescue me from my barren faith.