By Dorian Black

 

The air is still tonight.
Scarcely a breeze disturbs the cool of Springtime.
The robins are asleep.
Familiar stars gleam in their accustomed home.
I am content, resting, as my friend describes it,
“In the lap of heaven.”
Yet well I know, as I so quiet rest,
That turbulence erupts, terrible and crushing,
In many worlds apart but composite to mine.
Wars, storms and conflagrations sicken the blue-green earth.
I ask myself, would I retain stillness
Under the wind of an unquiet sky?
Dear God, I hope so! Yes, in the lap of heaven resting,
I am assured of peace, assured of constancy.
And could I not now, swaddled in starlight and soft Spring,
Create, if I so chose, misery?
Then by the grace of that same powerful Presence
The choice is mine instead to grant my world stillness
And a free open space for greenness
And for a constant heaven’s-lap growth of starlight.