Starting Sunday Morning
The week begins with one day of rest;
with the reverent colloquy
of mourning doves;
the quorum of sparrows
who observe him with impunity
from the budding maple overhead;
daffodils dancing on the head of a pin.
All pleasure and all pain
turned and disked in broad fields
of brown loam. It is easy enough
to sink downward into the deep soil.
Easy enough to let the furrows,
the harrows, and the headlands
shape destiny for him; or at least his week.
By Wednesday he finds no comfort
in the passions of the sun
the moods of falling rains.
There is no hint of prophecy
in this, he sees it for the fact
it is; another calculation, square footage,
pounds of seed, measures destined for his soul.
Truth, salvation, eternal spring scents,
locust blossoms and lily of the valley,
mingle and dissipate among the nesting robins,
the casual juncos and golden-crowned kinglets.
In his window box the herbs and hymns mingle;
lemon balm, bee balm, There is a Balm in Gilead,
as small foxes drift among the hedgerows.
Saturday evening he watches as his neighbors choose
between sin and Sabbath. He is weary.
But he stands with a sword of truth, a shield of faith,
with the deliberate lessons patiently cultivated.
His work has taught him. His weeks have shaped him;
the plowshare has beaten him,
honed his spirit into an instrument of itself.
The week begins with one day of rest;
with the reverent colloquy
of mourning doves;
the quorum of sparrows
who observe him with impunity
from the budding maple overhead;
daffodils dancing on the head of a pin.
All pleasure and all pain
turned and disked in broad fields
of brown loam. It is easy enough
to sink downward into the deep soil.
Easy enough to let the furrows,
the harrows, and the headlands
shape destiny for him; or at least his week.
By Wednesday he finds no comfort
in the passions of the sun
the moods of falling rains.
There is no hint of prophecy
in this, he sees it for the fact
it is; another calculation, square footage,
pounds of seed, measures destined for his soul.
Truth, salvation, eternal spring scents,
locust blossoms and lily of the valley,
mingle and dissipate among the nesting robins,
the casual juncos and golden-crowned kinglets.
In his window box the herbs and hymns mingle;
lemon balm, bee balm, There is a Balm in Gilead,
as small foxes drift among the hedgerows.
Saturday evening he watches as his neighbors choose
between sin and Sabbath. He is weary.
But he stands with a sword of truth, a shield of faith,
with the deliberate lessons patiently cultivated.
His work has taught him. His weeks have shaped him;
the plowshare has beaten him,
honed his spirit into an instrument of itself.