SHRINE

Earth is our shrine, mountains and rivers
her sanctums. Mighty trunks
and boughs, her columns and lintels, reach
into the azure; varied fretwork
canopies her spreads, emerald thro' Spring 
and Summer, red-gold thro' Autumn,
silver-white thro' Winter, that all 
their eyes may raise to yonder baldachin;
that blossoms, these tinted 
censers, may waft their fragrance 
into empyrean spaces.

The Seasons advance, the great Mother's
High Priestesses, bearing gifts
of paeans in their throats, myriad hues in 
eyes and tresses, scents in their
breath and garlands in their arms, for this
temple to bedeck with finery
and song. Spirits of Air, Sky, Water, Earth
and Fire they lead in prayer, 
in continual reverence, altars awash in the 
Great Fire's bounty by Day, by Night 
'neath the pale argent glow of a distant 
crystal veil, oft in clouds' cool libations.

Our praise and gratitude to the Universe we
sing, to the Elements, the Moon 
and Stars, to Life and Death, thro' tempests
and calm, thro' floods and drought,
Earth's gentlest creatures in attendance. 
Man once partook of this grace, ere pride 
hewed a path into his being, ere mundane 
riches blinded his soul to a higher Gold. 
He yearns, he knows not wherefore. 
Choicest feasts would not sate his spirit's 
hunger, nor gilded founts quench its thirst. 

Could marble palaces stave off misfortune?
Death and sorrow pervade the
stoutest stone walls. Man falters in darkness,
for he turns from the light. His words
seek to gloze and confound, belie his cruel
masquerade, cruellest unto himself.
His eristic speech rattles in the vales, e'en
silences birdsong. That which presently
shields, shall somewhen confine and shroud.
I, as all Spirits, pray for his deliverance,
that his soul's vision may triumph.

© 2015 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: THE BLUEBELL WOOD
Source: www.liveinternet.ru
Artist: Beatrice Emma Parsons