Rise early
when summer darkness
still enwraps the trees.
Walk into the dark forest
with only your attentive heart.
Gaze toward the east,
take a deep breath, and wait.

After a short while you will see God
carrying a lantern through the forest,
bits of light bobbing up and down
in and out, higher and higher
the light climbs, spilling over
into the spaces between the leaves
and on into the world
beyond the forest.

Then the beautiful darkness
hands you over to the light.
It slips away reverently
into the bark of the tree trunks
into the black earth
into all those other countries
that wait for its return.

Lift your face to the day-star now.
Experience the coming of dawn.
Bathed in morning light, pray
that the lantern of your life
move gently this day
into all those places
where light is needed.

posted on Spirit First with the permission of the poem's author
© Macrina Wiederkehr
All rights reserved
from The Circle of Life published March 2005, by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr