Predawn Dwellers

All things await the sun.

As I walk amongst the predawn dwellers,

the white winged perched and ashen mourning,

the dark sky weakens, grays

like long lit charcoal.

The little beings, winged and wide eyed,

witness calm the crescents dim descent

to morning's deepening tide,

submerging also each the chards surrounding.

Awake and warbling slight, each awaits,

along with every tree

beneath their little feet,

about their lighted breast,

that listening turns their leaved and lavish branches

east to greet the lift of midnights leaden shawl,

and rise of morning's lantern.

The sky too is shifting,

shy in shadowed shades.

It's eastern crest has turned the strangest blue,

rainbowed wide with strips of primrose,

layers thin, yet vast of violet.

It waits, as does every mile facing

westward charging, yet unchanging.

Its final chards submerge,

mutely making way for mornings star

which upward pulls with steady pace.

The predawn dwellers shift,

their voices calling,

just as sudden every branch begins to lift,

as all things waking rise, reflecting

each the great sun's restless dawning.

Its then the sun alights

and instant cresting east ignites

to render what of late was painted

purple lined with primrose,

all to patterns gold and life-lit

leapt and giving calm

it's live-long blessing

far amongst the dwellers all

who now alight in wing

and joyous song.

My Humble Pew

I miss the wild,
nature's every stitch of every thread,
long that brought,
though not of late,
my youthful soul to bent and humbled knee.

The early summer forest
thick with green and flowing,
welled with flowers, lilacs grown and glinting
white with violet,
far beneath it's ceiling
high and pied, of leaf and pine.
Its slightest stream,
an almost silent crawl
that weaves and winds its way
amidst the timbered crowd.
Each its songbird's precious verse,
those familiar, others strange,
all a welcome war to wage
against the retched roar
we ceaseless rage.

Autumn's melancholy,
peerless death in breadth and beauty,
joyous Spring
with all its splendor spent
on breathing birth to latent life,
and even sorrowed winter,
lifeless born and barren.

The dawn and dying dusk,
the chill of crystalled night
when distant stars from deep
reveal their clear, indifferent eyes,
awake, yet unaware of ours;
our minute view of things untouched,
untarnished yet and unattained,
our mighty minds despite.

For wild nature need not wait,
nor us to keep its course.
Ever, nature acts on will and whim,
bereft of time and care
of feet abound, or eyes aware.
The trees will ever take to root and sway,
and fall,
the sparrow's song within.
The most shallow stream
remembers where to flow,
as each the seasons need
no sign to die or grow.

Yet
I miss my humble pew,
my narrow view,
that even now is dwarfed
by just the smallest April oak.
I crave creation's deep design,
its fabric sewn with skillful hand
and artful eye.
Trapped between the bounds of days and time,
on city street or rural road
I wallow famished, faint,
awake and yearning;

Nature, beckon!
Break me, bring me down to bended knee,
amidst your beauty
set me free.

Rain, Rain

Again, again I greet your soft stampede,
afoot and whispering verse with chorused rhyme.
It's long I listen, late when wonders wake.
And not for what of old you've seen, but where
instead your gentle drops have ancient been,
of what in distant days you've felt, and who?

Did one amongst your many mingle
midst the storming sea to cradle only brief
His wearied heel or arch when once He trod
in faith, afoot across the storming sea?
Or drop beneath the starry sky to grace
the newborn's infant eye, or soft
beget a chill upon his creaseless brow?

Alight in ashen grey, did one or all,
or any wet that creased and precious brow
when thorns beset His aged and sorrowed eyes?
Perhaps his burdened back or bloodied hair,
His hanging head or pierced and flowing side.

On dusk's approach, I walk your slowed stampede,
within the hope, a silent hope;
of all your gentle drops upon my skin or near,
that one amongst you had the joy
to wash away His tears.

Our Mirrored Stay

I consider the moon, our likeness
lone and roaming dark the distant deeps and lacking
light within to cast
a lamp upon its lonely way.

I ponder long its nightly waking,
what was given, lost
from well without to lift
its darkened veil and light
its lofting fair.
Relating all the while with
that which lately rutterless roamed
reflecting now the full and fallen sun;
That which, had not the morning star
relenting westward bled,
would not have seen the road that led
nor shone amidst its leap
along its way.

My last reflection, last
but no less pressing lingers,
cresting toward the brink of morning's break;
our mirrored stay,
our days both marked and fleeting all
foreknown and headlong leading,
each like lures
have long been cast,
our purpose set, our path to seek
and find, but not to last.

For both, the waxing moon and I,
who only by the sun's descending
pale in semblance shone, will cease
our pallid climb at Dayspring's rise
to join the morning star.