The Hymnist

Within and beside me travels totality-
Thus, I seek to find in the glinting dew,
Bound by the Lord's writ and causality,
A duality of essence to reflect the true:

Speak, you hymns of life�"attest of death!
Trickle from the laborer's stony head;
Lace the droplets of the hunter's breath-

Thieve alike of the wakeful and dead;
Drive the marble into a drought of kings,
And panic to sand every skin and thread.

Push us wide from the knives cold lip,
As the revealing held in its ageless frame
Harkens to its framer�"a muse lent grip-

In-kind do you utter, in all ilk and name;
Through nail, cobweb, and ocean clear:
Only lesser gleanings of your vast claim-

So nag the heels of rooted oak and man-
Pilfer the branch, the white bird, the wine;
The book, the body, and the dark they span.

Hail from beyond the olive and the vine,
To us, who lay grim in your tribulation,
And to our posterity, rooted in eternal brine:

Heave high this winter�"low this summer,
Heave high this night�"low this day!
Hear these echo forth from the lone drummer,
Your holy summons, all you lambs of clay!