A Garden of Delights
As when a land of rivers pours forth water,
endless streams endlessly refreshed,
watering all the land and seeking sea,
so all the symbols of Scripture are poured forth,
the Holy Spirit their everlasting spring,
watering the prophets and our predecessors,
rolling and moving in search of Christ.
As when one moves through an endless forest
filled with fruit of every delightful kind,
rejoicing in even the smallest sapling,
so too the wise, meeting our predecessors,
rejoice in such a cloud of witnesses,
and take as their teachers any and all
who bear forth with delectable fruits.
Would I not be mad, and grievously insane,
to say to the apple, "Bear me a peach"?
If God makes the apple to bear apples,
shall I not rejoice in the apples it bears?
And shall I not wonder and rejoice
at how far His creativity exceeds my own?
Would I not be mad, a fool beyond fools,
to say to the rivers, "You meander,
and so in no way can you seek the sea"?
Should I not rejoice that God has given
these beautiful rivers like rolling roads
to carry me on to His illimitable Word?
Grass Is Not Green
Grass is not green;
those poets lie
who use that word to describe
the golden glow of sunlit blade
filled with ardor of bright ray.
'Green' is just a mundane word;
can it catch
a meadow full of sunlit grass?
But as the angels
and our God
are named with foolish names,
every name thus falling short,
so is the grass on sunlit day
called 'green' in a child's game,
a jest we jest
in heavenly courts,
a pet name made in play.
