Poems

Close of day: classic rural

Time has reserved this calm

hour to lay in the palm

of her hand like a jewel, and admire:

the hills drawing down the fire

of the sun to hearths, where it rests

its glory on groves and fields;

the wind that obligingly yields

itself to squire birds to their nests;

the stream that circles a thought

followed all day and caught

in the dusk of the reeds at the bend;

and houses content with the day,

windows shining; and barns that intend

milkings and feedings of hay,

and things bedding down in the gloam -

and, finally, out of the meadows,

down the lane slowly, the shadows

bringing the cattle home....

Window pattern

Outside the window, breeze and tree

lay a pattern over me.

Leaves and boughs are all I see.

Along a path of sky crisscrossed,

they are gently turned and tossed -

a world in which my thoughts get lost.

I watch the branches bow and swing.

Immersed in them, I cannot bring

myself beyond this perfect thing.

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society