I call it "Prosetry"!A "Proem" is what you get when you take the imagery and flow of poetry and marry it to the sentence and paragraph structure of prose. - The ultimate free verse!

"And God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.' And it was so. God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:14-18, N.I.V.)

I have always loved the clear night sky. It's infinite vastness both expands you into itself, and yet at the same time compresses you into a minute speck of interstellar dust. And just when you think it couldn't get any better than this, the full moon breaks free of the horizon and floods the land with gentle, easy-on-the-eyes, moonlight. The crisp, cool, precise pattern of the stars pales against a soft, luminous black and white rendition of the world in which we live. And when the moon shines really bright it banishes even the instinctive fear of the night.

As I stand there gazing skyward it is as if I hover on the very edge of Heaven itself. In those times I am overwhelmed by a passion, an understanding, that for those who seek it there is a destiny beyond this fragile egg of dust and rocks, with its delicate membrane of life and sustenance. That this Earth is but a nest from which we learn to fly on God-given wings.

There are also nights, when it is very quiet, I hear the faint flapping of canvas and a creaking of boards, and the muted call of a gull, wheeling overhead. The ocean is far from my home, but these very same stars once guided stout men in tall ships to all corners of the World. All the while these stars shone their steady light those men of old always knew where they were, and where they were going. But while the never-changing stars could guide them through the night only the Moon, the bright lantern of the Moon, could reveal the roaming icebergs, the uncharted reefs, the coastlines of unknown lands. The stars shone their arrows of light in the heavens above to show those travelers of old the way they should go. But the Moon cast its light upon the Earth to illuminate their path, and the dangers lurking therein.

And as my mind manned the helm and trimmed the sails along with those brave men who placed their faith, and their very lives, in the heavens above I began to understand the riddle of the Sun and the Moon. This awesome manifestation of universal power that rules our day. From which the very earth was born and without which it would quickly die. Whose raw power would destroy all in a heartbeat, but whose gentle caress breathes life and sustenance into all the earth. And this child of the universe who brings illumination to the night. Who hovers between Heaven and Earth. Of the Heavens but who keeps the company of the Earth. So much in our world, but not of it. Until the Sun comes again this lesser light must bathe the Earth in the light of its reflected glory. For it sees always the glory of the Sun, even when the earthbound cannot. Whose light fails only when it allows the Earth to overshadow it and who seeks not to eclipse the day and so bring darkness to the Earth.

And I began to think of the night through which the world now travels toward a new dawning when the greater light will return. I began to understand why we who have given ourselves to the Lord through Christ Jesus, to be born anew, are still here, hovering between Heaven and Earth.

Now when my mind goes back to those days of stout ships and tall men I loose my hands from the helm to soar skyward through clouds of billowing canvas. As I clear the shadow of the earth I am bathed in pure light and am transformed into a beam of reflected glory. Then we the many become the one, and together we caste a glow upon the earth to reveal that which is hidden so that those who roam the earth might discern their way. And though we are cursed by the pirate and by the thief, and the creatures of the night scurry away to the shadows as if scorched by the very light of day itself, we hover here between Heaven and Earth. Yearning to ascend higher, yet drawn to orbit by those of us still left to come. In those dreams I see among the pitch of the Earth a dappling of faint light reflecting from upturned faces, drawn to the light as they search for home. And I realise I must reflect the glory of the Lord with all my might, for there, riding on the beams of the Moon are a myriad points of light as brothers and sisters take wing and soar upward. Following the light to this place between Heaven and Earth.

But we know soon the last of us will rise and our ties to the Earth will be loosed as we continue our Heavenward flight. What then of the Earth? For when the last of the young have flown the nest does not the greater one, the mother bird, the sustainer of life, also depart and the nest die? When the last of the young has flown from the nest death and destruction is its only future.

D.J. Ludlow Copyright 2002.