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Mourning/Morning

Henry Rempel

It may well be –
At least for me –
That mourning is the way, today,
To climb the stars,
Count trophy scars,
And morning see reflected in each tear that falls,
And hear the dawn in nature’s call.

My heart is changed; the laughter gone.

Each blade of grass of every lawn is cut and bruised and trod upon,
And thereby, somehow, we define the green botanic field divine.

And so it is, I am but one of millions, billions ‘neath the sun
That reaches skyward, and, as I do, the Gardener comes, cuts, and hews.
Yet, what I lose I find again; the root, my spirit, absorbs the waste of former gain.
The field of which I am a part becomes the playground of the heart,
Where children daily come to play, and old ones come along to pray.
My mourning yields their morning as the cut is made each week;
It seems to me it is because it is the Son I seek.
Lord, please let me never drop the sky to my convenient, cosy high.
Stretch me high and stretch me wide. Let me risk. I cannot hide
From the gales of your fierce love,
Where the Eagle soars and sees the universe of ecstacies:
Pain and sorrow, joy and mirth.

To seek the sky we need the earth.

Henry Rempel is a member of Sardis Community Church in Chilliwack, B.C.

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Last modified March 14, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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