This Majestic Glory

"They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life."---Jane Austen

I have a certain unhappiness, somewhat like Austen's, when I meet someone disinterested in the beautiful Creation God has provided for us. God has given us everything from soft, tendrilling roses to the harsh grandeur of lightning on mountains, and to be wholly unaware---or careless---of such snatches of beauty is pitiable indeed. God did not separate nature simply to the brief chapters of Genesis: his Word is full of it. Psalms is abundant with allegories of humans and eagles, the earth clapping its hands, and hills bowing low to God's glory. Song of Songs speaks of lovers in lush beds of flowers; God contends with Job when he asks Job if he made this wild world and every creature on it. Ruth gleans in shining harvest fields; the Israelites go through parallel worlds of both harsh desert and verdant land.
God shows himself continually through his creation, both in the Bible, and today. I challenge those locked up behind computer desks to take a breath now and then of the breeze, and to write about the season's changing. We have not experienced fully until we experience this majestic glory of creation.

Footsteps of Autumn Rain

An autumn moon, like fresh-shucked corn
The chin of an October morn
The footsteps of the gentle rain:
And leaves across the window frame.
A tabby cat with eyes of gold
The pumpkin and its top of mold
A single, solitary stain
Of raindrops on the window frame.
The open mouth of summer brooks
That linger, with a backward look
As if to say, "The winsome grains
Have rotted in the autumn rains."
The thin black caw of cobalt crows
A whisper of the coming snows
Red maples bent across the lane:
And footsteps of the gentle rain.

Autumn Pale

When the world in solemn stillness lies,
And the moon in silence, frowns
And the sad, dark wind
On the lonesome bend
Lips the river's frothy gown
When the brow of the hill is as brass as the bell
That hangs in the cornered dale:
We will lift our heads, and breathe a prayer
A prayer of the autumn pale.