Moving to the Meter of the Music
 
Everything in the Universe must dance
with the sound of light, by tock of time
made on God’s clock that he monitors
carefully with beseeching eyes.  Keep up!
Keep up with cold planets and trailing
moons.  Be stone that circles gold eye.
Race to speed of sputtering stars;
like fluttering firefly flies to its vanishing
place in dark dance of night.
Track seasons.  Go and return
in your greenness, in full bloom,
in flutter of a leaf returning to its home,
in gulp of gray ice, retrace your steps
in the dance of destiny.  Travel
like the gust of Nor’Easter,

gather last brave breath
through Chinook, through hurricane,
through tornado that touches down
and pulls back up with a mouthful
of that from which all things are formed.
Be swift thoroughbred; all bets hedged.
Be quick cheetah after gazelle,
coyote panting on back foot
of rioting rabbit, like forest fire
gobbling up redwood.  In a blink,
death comes swiftly as twinkling
of an eye that inevitably disappears in darkness.
Even snail, at fastest pace,
is crawling to tick of silent clock.
Water moves, whether ice, bog, pool,
river, ocean or water falling to its mother.
Everything is attached to the hand of god,
pulling, pushing us, to meter of his music.
Step to your required pace.  His metronome hums.