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He
TWO POEMS
HE
Whose truth, with song arising,
Lifts my eyes beyond the dawn,
Is root and leaf, coniprising,
Fire and water, air and stone.
For He is breath: a whisper
On leaning wave and rustling grass,
Or a lung inspiring grasper
Exulting in the thunder's brass.
The whelming splendor of my seeing
Reveals annihilating space,
Within whose slightest being
A saraband of stars may race.
Intangible yet near: the Name
Is He, the flaming Word whose light
Uncircumscribed, is burning frame
And picture of the Infinite.
For He is fire; triumphant flower,
The subtle spark and radiant strife;
In household logs I see the power
Where nothing lives and all is life.
And ice: a blue chill sighing
In stiffened forest and glazed ponds:
I feel the frozen forces trying
In the clear cold their lake-locked bonds.
Yet He is nowhere! In the night
The shadows prowl. A blazing sun
Is but a glimmer of His light,
While spaces thunder darkly on.
SONG
The crows in windward flight
caw at the flares of frost,
a silver trail of light
for spring is here almost.
Alone, with heart sunk low,
I cross the frozen field,
for deadly winds will blow
when winter crystals yield.
This chill is blue and pale
but red is summer chill
with flame upon the vale
and blood upon the hill.
This cold will yield to grass
but summer cold must last
with rattling of the brass
and metal blazing blast.