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.