Escape

         I escape,

and listen to a dove on distant oaks

         or a lark ascending,

the many endings and beginnings

         of a harmony rising.

Those notes, so tentative at first

         begin to sing

and usher in new echoes

         more organic and sublime.

All anxiety fades then,

like the forgotten memory of a dream.

Remembering

For some, remembering the past

is like swallowing glass:

their memories stay buried in the ground

like a dead ancestor -

hated

yet somehow sacred.

My memories of childhood

are like a sugar lump.

My mother's time-worn lullaby

was like dew on tender grass.

I saw the light of dawn break through the leaves

and sparkle on the cobwebs;

when beads of moisture hung there,

crystalline and delicate.

It was my shoe that broke the ice

as I stepped into the stream,

and planted a stone.

I planted a stone -

it remains unmoved

but smoothened by the flow of time.

What once was just a trickle

is now a flooded river;

and here I stand on the riverbank,

frightened

as I watch time rush away, away.

Time is change,

progression of decay;

we delay, delay,

and turn to our own way

until the end of day.

I cannot comprehend from beginning to end

What strength has set eternity in our hearts.

God has made things beautiful in their time.

If I use all my powers to pretend

To understand where all creation starts

I cannot comprehend from beginning to end.

When night arrives, a darker air descends;

The skies display a burning mass of stars.

God has made things beautiful in their time.

If indeed you think that you can count them,

Look up at the heavens and count the stars -

I cannot comprehend from beginning to end.

Oak trees in the wind begin to bend;

A fragrance stirs our garden from afar.

God has made things beautiful in their time.

Against the pain that time beings to mend

A gentle whisper makes our fears depart.

For all the books and teaching life imparts

I cannot comprehend from beginning to end -

God has made things beautiful in their time.