Night Divine

Night Divine
(Excerpt from a Journal/ Camino St Francis September 2019/ La Verna, Italy)

Night Divine

Sometimes
the moon is like a 
white page…words
splashed in ink
become the black sky.

The more numerous the words become…
SOMETIMES
they fill the page, they
merge together so
nothing can be read
or understood
except the light
of the silent moon
crossing the sky.

Oh, Divine Night
held in infinite splendor.
Who is it that splashed your canopy with a
bouquet of dazzling stars?

One after another popped like kernels of corn~~~
a few shot through and across your pallet
re-creating a pattern ever changing, 
groaning, aching with delight, as if being 
born anew.  The Milky Way split itself
upon the scene…Oh Holy Night.

I wish you never end. I  laid me down
in the curl of the moon’s crest…sleep overcame
me and my lashes, upon waking, covered in
starry dew.  Again, I wish this night
never cease from being.  The majestic trees,
from my window pane, stand like a line of
shadows, stately shepherds, keeping watch on
this night.  One tiny bird rises to sing.
Its voice stretches into a vastness beyond
reach, yet, I hold out my hand like a cup
and you fill  my palm with a breath of
wonder that I hold and then set free.
NO-thing is mine.  EVERY-thing made,
including this me, asks, Who am I? Who 
are You?  

Oh, that I AM One of your stars,
THIS night, that as you look, you might speak to
yourself, “Ah, Yes, I SEE thyself in thee.”

Oh, Night Divine.