A Rural Dusk

On a ride through the Lancaster County countyside

The hoary oaks wade rampantly 
through wild, fertile wastes
of wheat and corn beholding—
lifting coronets of golding grain—
dawn mirrored in the setting sun.
Day is come and gone and coming, 
work is done and being done.
This gilding comes with morn and dusk.

For now the thriving shadows 
of the knee-deep copses grow
faster, grander than any tree
of life or death or knowledge— 
titans of the carboniferous 
pre-dawn dusk of the world.

For now the telephone lines are become
golden streamers strung between 
the ruddy ruby rails of telecommunication,
fenceposts of our padded cells,
our informed isolation,
Human ingenuity engloried by nature.
For man's impudence is no impediment—
despite our infernal intelligence—
but an expedient of the Divine.

So life is lived and given,
riven from the welter of the rude
to pave the rood-road of heaven.
This is life: to live, give,
be given, and forgive—forgiven.

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