Wings

On Point Lobos

Purity of freshness, sea-mountain air,
small yellow flowers blooming everywhere;
Monterey cypress on rocky bluffs,
blue cove inlets, glittering surf,
crashing foam upon the cliffs…
This wild, rocky headland
sculpted to perfection
like a diamond faceted
by wind and pounding wave;
washed clean by sun and rain,
the pulsing of the tides,
the breath of earth and sea;
its very soul and essence
self-expressed in these
haunting, windblown trees
lifting up their boughs
like outspread wings.

Cathedral

Gold-light through the eucalyptus
in the sunset and the dawn,
leaves ablaze with rainbow-colors,
a shimmering bright bridal gown
hung with gleaming angel feathers,
curtains of bright firefall,
like a million votive candles
flickering along a wall.

Evidence of Angels

On the surface of the waters,
the footprints of the wind;
shadowed lines of ripple
fanning out like wings
or gulls, --or of angels.

A bright, unseen hand
sweeps across the wetlands,
over field and meadow;
reeds and grasses bow
in shades of green and yellow.

Windroar in the trees;
boughs and crescent leaves
like flashing strips of foil,
like silver-rushing wings
against the purple sky.

And from the hills, behold
how the verdant lands below
are traced in rhythmic lines of flow,
showing where the water runs
and where the sea-winds blow.

--Sunlight, wind, and water,
all of these together
shape the world we know.
And everywhere they go,
I see evidence of angels.

Windrush

The rush and roar
of wind in the redwoods:
muted sound of thunder
coming as from nowhere,
yet sounding everywhere,
filling the wet air,
then subsiding again,
gone the way they came…
No man knows the way of it;
we can only hear it:
Ruach, Holy
Breath of Spirit.

To Hear Your Song

To hear your song again,
Father of the wind,
played upon the instrument
of our Mother's skin:
A resonant woodwind,
the wind in the pines;
the morning sunshine
breathing heaven's colors
in bright rainbow splendor
through the rustling leaves
all around me…

Flame

I found a tiny swallow
like a fallen angel
lying in the dust
there beside the road
where the tall grass grows.
Hit by passing traffic;
noone even knows…

Kneeling in the sand,
I held it in my hand,
felt its dusky wings
outstretched in my fingers;
soft and supple feathers,
elegant fine shoulders
beautifully streamlined,
made to cut the wind;
blended form and function,
evidence of wisdom.

--A rare and noble creature
so like a living flame…
The spirit flies away,
and yet the form remains,
bearing still the witness
of what it once expressed;
the beauty and the passion
which once wielded it.

But even as I held it,
somehow I knew that it
could not be extinguished;
that its flame burns on
beneath some brighter sun.

To a Swallow

A colony of swallows, ever on the wing,
swooping and gliding over field and stream,
seeking high and low for silver-winged things
for their clamoring young,
that life may go on.

In its lifetime, such a one,
it's said, may cover fifty million
miles, a hundred to and from
the moon, or two unto the sun
and back to Earth again.

--Fly, then, feathered angel,
fly unto the sun;
fetch some holy seed of life,
some spark of fire bright enough
to rekindle a dream;
a multicolored beam,
a penetrating ray
to paint this cloudy day
in colors of the rainbow.

Go fetch for me
some fire-winged thing
born of solar flame,
a seed of Creation,
that we might live again;
the world begin again.

Radiance

A pair of mallards overhead,
beating wings into the sunset;
a hummingbird, a darting swallow
dancing on the fading glow…

Within each created thing
there glows a secret radiance;
an inborn faith an confidence
in its own essential rootedness

in God. This essence cannot die,
however shadowed for a time.
The shadow of the night will pass;
this present darkness cannot last.

Angels

Soaring egrets with outspread wings
remind me of angels: a thing otherworldly,
messengers pointing to brighter dimensions
beyond the thin screen wrapped around us;
where all things have their truest being,
the wellsprings of beauty, the home of perfection,
dynamic symmetries of that great Wisdom
which gives shape and form to visible Nature.

And, why should it be that such ignorant creatures
with no sense of beauty themselves, or of wonder,
are themselves beautiful? Unto what purpose?
No functional reason I can imagine...
Visible things must sign what's beyond them,
windows lit dim by some brighter heavens
beyond our own sky, where angels fly shining.

Wild Freedom

Behold the creatures of the air,
the children of near-heaven,
singing and exulting
in their winged freedom:

All the world is theirs,
and they go where they will,
bound by no law at all
but the law of wisdom
written deep within them
in bone and beak and quill.

There,the northern geese
in their wild autumn flight,
winging through the skies
from day on into night,
their high honking chorus
far over lake and forest,
all the world before them,
all the sky their freedom.

Tiny sparrows flocking
between the crowns of trees,
high pastures of heaven,
the verdant banquet table
always prepared for them:
Unending provision
of berries, bugs, and seeds,
everything they need
there within their reach.
They only need to know
where and when to go;
some silent wisdom leads,
and they but follow.
And I wish that I could know
the way of it…

Wild Geese

Wild geese in the morning mist,
flapping with their necks outstretched,
rising up on halo'd wingtips,
scattering sun-golden droplets;
spreading circles all around,
rippling across the pond.

Now a growing restlessness
stirring somewhere in the mist;
rustled feathers all around,
become a wild and rushing sound
as with trumpet calls they rise
into deep blue autumn skies.

Whirlwind Wings

Flocks of sea birds, mighty hosts
gather on the northern coasts;
teeming colonies of gannets,
puffins, murrelets, and auklets,
gulls and terns and cormorants
soaring from the jagged cliffs,
high ledges where they build their nests.

And my heart is filled with wonder
to see them flocking without number
above the glory and the thunder
of rock and surf and splashing spray
in the last bright gleam of day;
circling now overhead
in glow of sunset, purple, red,
a whirlwind spun of shining wings
ever-ascending, descending
into and from
the blazing heavens.

"Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty;
heaven and earth
are filled with your glory!"

They Lift Their Cries

Here in this coastal wilderness,
high in the pine and eucalyptus,
young herons in their nests
cry out for sustenance,
crying to their parents,
crying out to you…

Morning and evening
they lift their cries to you;
with all of Creation
they lift their cries to you.
All of your children
lift our cries to you.

Blessing on a Sparrow

Blessed are you, little one,
for all that you are,
and all that you need
in order to live and sing and soar
has been ordained and provided for
from the Big-Bang Beginning of time;
from the very foundation
when this molten earth was formed
from the dust of exploded stars.
And though you be small,
you are yet formed
of the same lode of matter
as comets and planets
and the very sun.

Blessed are you, little one,
for you reveal another aspect
of that divine Wisdom
in which all these were formed.

Blessed are you, little one,
for your every feather is numbered;
the angels watch over you,
and all the universe
feels and knows it when you fall.

Blessed are you, little one,
for in your humble way
you are a reflection
of those very angels:
melodious in song,
joyous in energy,
clothed in beauty.

Blessed are the little ones,
for theirs is the Kingdom
of Earth and Heaven.

Seascape

Blue bay waters, golden strand,
a long ribbon of shining sand;
figures walking in the distance,
tiny 'neath the high, white cliffs.

Pelicans in vanguard-flight,
white-winged spirits hovering
over sunbeam-spangled waters,
fresh-created light.

A buoy clangs like silver
far over placid waters,
broken by the barking chorus
of sealions at rest.

And there the dolphins play,
leaping forms and spray,
racing all across the bay
in rhythm, perfect freedom.

And the ancient ones, the greys
continue on their long migration
from the Baja to the Bering,
surfacing and spouting.

And the sun above shines bright,
and the earth spins on just right,
and the wind blows gently round her
through the day and into night…

And the sun above shines bright,
and the earth spins on just right,
and the wind blows gently round her
through the day and into night…