and it’s so peaceful, as if nature at this hour
replays Creation’s dawn; takes a heartfelt pause
before it launches, first itself, then us,
into the business of the day and, so it seems,
to lose ourselves somewhere inside ourselves.
Sitting here, I meditate upon the silence and the stillness
at this thought-free hour of dawn; as if I and nature both
share that sweet mystery that movement, action,
arise from stillness, remain behind it all the day…
To measure out the use of this fine world –
to live, neither too little nor too much;
to be both actor and the watcher of all this,
sitting in delight at one’s own play…
And in the kitchen of the spirit,
where rolling-pins and herbs live lives of metaphor,
weigh out with balance, measure in the jug of life
the usage of this world;
in these scales, balance gold;
the gold that’s earned, the gold that’s given out;
from this jug, pours pure joy.
This evening, bruised and battered by the day
that I allowed to, worldly, use me thus,
I shall return to this same garden seat
showered and refreshed
by spirit’s bathing – mercy, grace –
to find again that peace which never left
this seat of love