Glory in the Darkness

[youtube=[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEBILHaMh_w&rel=1]

“Glory in the darkness” says the clock on the wall
“as your ship goes out through the ice”

“But the walls and floors obstruct us”
sing off-register voices from emptiness

“Charge inside lightning that dances at midnight”
calls the grass out the window still damp from dew

“Nowhere is without His activating Grace”
screams the fire truck siren hurrying down the street

Then the abiding silence laps back like surf
and the small noises pick themselves out of it again

The hand that writes this is as mortal as a moth
though in the script that flows are glimmers of first light

All our hearts are poised on eternity’s picket fence
watching both sides at once for signs and wonders

But to stand in the darkness with arms outstretched
is the ant’s way of glorying in the all-encroaching grandeur

And love’s way of holding us close to its mouth
to hear its single heartbeat reverberate past death

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12/19/07 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak)

Categories: Poems