The Cedar Tree

In the beginning, in the unbeginning
of endlessness and of eternity,
God saw this tree.
He saw these cedar branches bending low
under the full exhaustion of the snow.
And since He set no wind of day to rising,
this burden of beauty and this burden of cold,
whether the wood breaks or the branches hold
must be of His devising.

There is a cedar similarly decked
deep in the winter of my intellect
under the snow, the snow,
the scales of light its limitations tell.

I clasp this thought: from all eternity
God who is good looked down upon this tree
white in the weighted air,
and of another cedar reckoned well.
He knew how much each tree, each twig could bear.
He counted every snowflake as it fell.

-- The Cedar Tree by Sr Miriam of the Holy Spirit, ocd (better known as Jessica Powers, her lay name)

This Trackless Solitude

Deep in the soul the acres lie
of virgin lands of sacred wood
where waits the Spirit. Each soul bears
this trackless solitude.

The Voice invites, implores in vain
the fearful and the unaware;
but she who heeds and enters in
finds ultimate wisdom there.

The Spirit lights the way for her;
bramble and bush are pushed apart.
He lures her into wilderness
but to rejoice her heart.

Beneath the glistening foliage
the fruit of love hangs always near.
The one immortal fruit: He is
or, tasted: He is here.

Love leads, and she surrenders to
His will. His waylessness of grace.
She speaks no words save his, nor moves
until he marks the place.

Hence all her paths are mystery.
presaging a devine unknown.
Her only light is in the creed
that she is not alone.

The soul that wanders, Spirit led,
becomes, in His transforming shade,
the secret that she was, in God.
before the world was made. 


-- Sr Miriam of the Holy Spirit, ocd