Poem October 8, 2007 Issue

Healing song

Sally Lessiter

Long after sunset, with hours yet to sunrise, sleep escapes me.
Outside my window (unseen yet clearly heard) one bird sings alone.
With trills and warbles, ascending song and descant scales
break night's darkness—with vibrant notes of life and love.

Why does a bird sing at this time of night?
Such questions should not matter. Compassion calls.
I listen, rise in thought away from inner gloom
to test my silent voice in solitary song.

Now, humming prayer preludes hymns of praise.
No longer a soloist, two choralists are heard:
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

As night gradually glimmers with a dawning of Truth,
two voices harmonize in heavenly tune.
Birdsong begins, and alto continues:

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing;
In that sweet secret of the narrow way,
Seeking and finding, with the angels sing:
"Lo, I am with you alway,"—watch and pray.Mary Baker Eddy, Poems, "Mother's Evening Prayer," p.4.

Doubt, darkness, and discomfort have dispersed with daylight.
Creation's chorus is complete; perfection is reclaimed.
This singing, feathered, angel friend has guardianed my night.

—Sally Lessiter

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