Poem: The Flower
How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
are Thy returns! Even as the flowers in spring,
to which, besides their own demean,
the late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
Grief melts away
like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shrivelled heart
could have recovered greenness? It was gone
quite underground, as flowers depart
to see their mother-root, when they have blown;
where they together
all the hard weather,
dead to the world, keep house unknown.
These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
killing and quickening, bringing down to hell
and up to heaven in an hour;
making a chiming of a passing-bell.
We say amiss
this or that is;
Thy word is all, if we could spell.
Oh, that I once past changing were,
fast in Thy paradise, where no flower can wither!
Many a spring I shoot up fair,
offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither;
nor doth my flower
want a spring shower,
my sins and I joining together.
But while I grow in a straight line,
still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline.
What frost to that? What pole is not the zone
where all things burn,
when Thou dost turn,
and the least frown of Thine is shown?
And now in age I bud again;
after so many deaths I love and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
and relish versing. O my only Light,
it cannot be
that I am he
on whom Thy tempests fell all night.
These are Thy wonders, Lord of love,
to make us see we are but flowers that glide;
which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to bide.
Who would be more,
swelling through store,
forfeit their paradise by their pride.
------------------ George Herbert (1593-1633), English priest and poet, from The Temple (1633)
Proverb:
“The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
is heard in our land.”
----------Song of Songs 2:12
Painting: Almond Blossoms, Vincent Van Gogh, 1890
Prayer: The First Day of Spring
O God,
as Earth turns in wakefulness
from the slumber of winter
to the rising dawn of spring,
as geese arrow southward overhead,
we too turn our thoughts to home,
the sunlit home we offer us in your kingdom.
Help us gather
beneath your shining countenance.
Help us sing out your love;
let halting harmonies
become intricate tapestries of grateful praise,
for your love is steadfast and true.
May we release the stones of our cares
in the deep well of your abundant grace,
casting all our burdens
upon the promise of your mercy and care.
Teach us to walk in paths of compassion
to share from the bounty we have received
of charity, forgiveness, and holy wisdom.
O God,
cast your finest net beneath our seeking hearts
that we may be gathered when our way turns to wandering
as we long to be drawn
within the sheltering wing of your loving-kindness,
and extend your sheltering hand
beneath those for whom we pray.
Amen.
-----------Leslie Barnes Scoopmire
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