To Hope's Newest Enterprise...

Dawn is a vale kissed with soft purple mist and cricket-song...

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
    to sing praises to your name, O Most High; 

 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
    and your faithfulness by night,

to the music of the lute and the harp,
    to the melody of the lyre.

For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
    at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

Ps.92:1-4

Soft cricket song cascades across time’s waking enterprise

The Maestro touches his baton to morning’s blushing skies

And from the throats of nature’s choristers swell notes of praise

To He who grants His grace to mankind’s learning, yearning ways

The world is like a graveyard filled with tears and years, and yet

In folds of pink upon the brink of earth Hope is reset

And we are not forgotten, no, in spite of ignorance

As He who grants His mercy plants the air with evidence

Ah, what is man that God is mindful of his needy call?

And who can understand the mind of He who knows it all?

The greedy gall of human nature ought to damn our days

Still, He who grants His goodness sets the dark of dawn ablaze

Faith is the substance of things hoped for but no one can see

We grapple with mortal weakness and mortal tendency

While the Immortal comforts and astounds this begging breed

And grants to our helplessness His Power to succeed

...where Time is like a table laden with hope’s latest feast

As much as we are able we should pray, then take and eat

While cricket song cascades across the landscape of our sighs

To He who grants His Providence to hope’s new enterprise

© Janet Martin