Dry Leaves

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Bless the Lord, all you angels of the Lord.  
Sing his glory and praise forever.                                                              
                                                 Daniel 3:53

                                                          painting by judithmandersonfinearts.com


My prayers are dry in all this rain and mist.  A few slips of snow strewn over the fields, fewer words in my heart.  The silences I am wrapped this morning still my soul, my mind, allowing for the insignificance of self outside the Lord.  It is a long loneliness shackled with pride.  I kick at slimy leaves that were once a soft-pedaled green and full of light: the making of nourishment in their secret veins; a bright singing lifted up to the Lord God, simply and ordinarily as if nothing miraculous was transpiring at all.  Oh, that I would turn my prayers toward His luminosity singing and sing.

             

                              Late Winter Breeze Through Oak Trees


                                   These old leaves stun and sound
                                        a gently rolling creek
                                           in their congregation’s susurrations
                                               over my lingering.

                                    These tethered swaying
                                        were urgent once
                                           and fierce in their appetites
                                             for starlight;

                                    now dangling parchments
                                       sounding water arias;
                                           ornaments
                                               of what becomes

                                       of the multitudinous,
                                           seemingly discarded 
                                               unnecessary.