The Lark Descending


The Lark Descending

 

I am walking the grassy swell

 of a gentle valley.

The air stirs with intimation

with the promise of new life.

Strung along the edge of fields

trees eager for spring

have already shed the grey veil of winter

and put on their sheer new pelts

in gauzed green, pale plum and old gold.

The sun still low in the sky

crowns the top of their branches

and casts etchings of their tracery

on the waking earth.

 

Above the sky is thin and translucent

clear as water straight from the spring.

And there you are

in the midst

of all that silent spacious clarity.

A lark ascending.

Your song irrepressible and seamless

seemingly held aloft by breath so fine

it threads the notes through a single weave.

The stream of your sound

fills the still clear sky within me

and for a moment that feels like eternity

I am transfigured.

 

Then suddenly

out of thin air

out of the sky’s embrace

you fall

straight down

plummeting

as though your

tiny feathered body

were made of lead.

Your plumb line drop

like a fireman’s pole

opening a path

between two worlds.

 

And still your song sounds.

Its searching brightness

rising now

from the wintered grass

 hidden from my gaze.

Unflustered. Uninjured. Unceasing.

The lark descending.

Irresistibly drawn

 all ways

towards God.

Reminding me

that soul sings on earth

as it does in heaven.