turn your eyes…

Our gathered hope would rise
to the same note x3 for effect: 
and the things of earth.
But we’d sung it too many times,
we knew those notes black 
with wax-winged pride.
So we’d surrender all,
turn our eyes, then obediently
fall to that other note x3,
the one humbler, bordered
by fear’s glory and grace:
will grow strangely dim.
 
When I was a child I sang as a child.
But that was moons ago,
days of scaled theology.
I am older now,
my vision blinded by
the full and wonderful –
the back of a woman’s knee,
the brief summer laughter of children,
the smell of cinnamon,
reading Stafford through bifocals,
and the grave’s temporary victory.
Things of earth.
 
 
 
 
 

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4 Comments

  1. sethhaines on July 7, 2011 at 11:08 am

    Very nice, John.

  2. Joyce Harback on July 10, 2011 at 5:54 am

    nostalgia and presence

    • thebeautifuldue on July 10, 2011 at 2:29 pm

      Joyce, thanks for your words…those two mean a great deal to me…

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