-- In the Glass of God’s Eye --

John Herlihy

We take nature’s rhythms for granted;

We never doubt they will always be there.

Rolling pillow clouds, driving rain slanted;

We stroll through nature’s park hardly aware.

Nature reflected in the glass of God’s eye;

Prisms of light shining as rainbows lustrous.

Resurrection means that all things have to die;

In fanning bellows, fire and light glow precious.

Unseen forces spring grass from the rich earth;

The dawn that splinters the night sky with light.

The sprigs, the sprouts that signal a new birth;

The battlefield of twilight to turn day into night.

What if the earth stood still, no stars, no night,

The moon’s scarred face what could have been.

Parched land in the endless glare of white light,

No celestial music with the makings of a hymn.

We appreciate silence in the absence of sound;

Our hearing dulled by the steady stream of noise.

But what of a silence without any hope of sound;

The owl never hoots, birds never sing of their joys.

On the horizon lay distant mountains, majestic;

Snow ranges of dream, rising high against the sky.

Like aging patriarchs with white beards, prophetic;

Raptors in this ragged country uttering a piercing cry.

Earth’s deserts undulate with white valleys of dunes;

Dried shrubs and sand grasses cling to shifting slopes.

In the night’s desert darkness, stars await alien moons;

Shooting stars crisscross the heavens as celestial ropes.

Over the blue-black ocean hangs the makings of a storm;

Its dark pulse moving amid descending shafts of winter light.

Rain slants down in sheets, its power throbbing in the dawn;

A roar of thunder skims the waves, found in a cave of fright.

Sightless heavens are missing something on moonless nights,

As if the darkness of the night wandered amid its own ghosts.

The pulse of the night’s heart feeble on those starless nights,

Without the pulsing of the starlight inviting as night’s hosts.

The stars and moon reappear in the night as if in conspiracy;

Twice a day, the lunar tides wash clean the slate of the beach.

We cannot live without them, without their enduring mystery,

Appearing, ever moving, ever throbbing, our hearts to beseech.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Sunday 14 November 2021