are we asleep yet?

Pictures from the baccalaureate service are up on photobucket.

Can I find anything more edifying to say? It is, after all, Sabbath evening.... Well, here's a poem, written on one of those long drives back to Tulsa, on a Sabbath afternoon, as a matter of fact.

In Place

Shadows swimming, sliding down the road,
These rippling hills shaken blue beneath the sun,
Like green sand slipping as the shadows run,
The silver grass slides past and cannot hold,
This scalloped foam that shimmers as it rolls.
Such shining sheaves lie shaken to the sky,
Blade on blade, leaf on leaf, branches underlie—
Black net of veins through earth, through dusty sky.
Can any count the number of these seeds?
Enlist each branch, or census every tree?
Who holds the matted roots when autumn comes,
Or knows each falling leaf as it burns down?
Who sends the winter wind to bleach the grass,
To blacken trees, turn limbs to candle-ash?
And when night comes, who keeps the rolling hills,
Who keeps their colors as the darkness fills
The empty valleys till the morning comes?
Night eyes these hills, veined where the small lights run,
The skies and hills both seeded with bright stars.
Who holds the lights so that no darkness mars?
Who keeps the lights that pulse across the land,
Or holds the constellations where they stand?
Who banks the fiery sands till morning breaks,
And then re-ripples hills for winds to rake?
If forces only keep the small things fast,
What holds the forces in their place? At last,
Behind the powers of the ringing world,
Must live some brilliant stillness who can hold
From oak to ash to pulsar in its place,
As Word well-woven veil before His face.