The heavens declare the glory of God.
Every night, the sidelong hip of the Milky Way
Shows itself to you. You see
Backward across miles and years
Along the light of the works of the Almighty.
The earth at your feet is fruitful, wild, and weary.
It pours out words day and night.
The sky and the screaming birds
And all the fullness therein say:
Holy, holy, holy.
The circuit of the sun spans the sky.
If you would have light and heat,
Why are you not more in the sunshine?
If you would see the glory of God,
Why are you always elsewhere?
If you would hear the word in the wind,
Face the stars and wait.
Lord, your word wends your people perfectly;
I wander a lifelong in it.
Wrap it around my heart to heal.
Speak the long law down directly
And make me wise.
Curve the straight line of your commandments
Over me and make me glad again.
Put the honeycomb of your way
In my mind’s mouth.
Even now my chest, my ribs, these rafters,
This cathedral, fills with the word that made it,
And your name hushes through the clerestory.
It was always easier to give my life away
Than it was to lay it down.
I see my every fault in holy light;
My hidden thoughts are pearl bright.
But your love is longer than I thought, and stays
Like smoke by day and fire by night.
The stars sway in your holy heaven.
The sun walks its lightlong stretch of sky.
I watch and wait and listen.
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