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.