Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Vision Of Mercy Wade

Vision Of Mercy Wade
© Surazeus
2018 02 06

Forty years ago when I was thirteen,
after coming home from service in church
on warm sunlit Saturday afternoon,
walking downhill in the small Texas town,
I sat by gold window in shadowed room
and dreamed I was young girl in long black dress
walking sun-dappled trail among tall trees
beside the low hill where spotted deer play.

Holding hands with the boy in broad-brim hat,
I float safe in the beaming glow of love
as if I wear new pair of angel wings,
and fancy we would live in a large mansion
on lush shores of the shining crystal stream
within the world-encircling walls of Heaven,
strumming harps as we sing hymns of our faith,
together in lush grove of apple trees.

Approaching large wood home among tall trees,
I see my mother Anne behind green glass
who dips feather quill in bottle of ink
then writes flowing letters on cloud-white page
to express the weird visions of her mind
in elegant lines of sweet rhyming verse,
and I feel pangs of love strike at my heart
as we listen to birds sing ache of hope.

While exploring virtual globe of the Earth,
I zoom down to Andover in Massachusetts
to find the large wood home on Osgood Street
where my ancestor Anne Bradstreet once lived,
and there, on the hill where spotted deer play,
I see the shady lane where lovers walked,
sunlight gleaming gold through the singing trees,
and I feel soft Sabbath afternoon breeze.

I realize then, with smile of wondrous joy,
that childhood dream of walking sunlit lane
was vivid memory of timeless love
experienced by ancestor of my spirit
who was the first born in America
twelve generations ago, where she woke
and sat listening to birdsong with her lover,
and felt sunlight weaving wings in her heart.

We are lone exiles in the wilderness,
far from loud clamor in courts of fame,
aching with desire to sing hymns of truth
while feasting on apples in paradise,
but Heaven was illusion of false hope
so while we struggle to survive on Earth
we sing the beauty of the world we know,
our souls glowing like flame in wind of time.

I feel Mercy Bradstreet Wade in my heart,
still singing sad hymns four hundred years later,
her world view glowing as light in the gloom
to guide my journey west across vast land
where I stand on mountains and touch the stars
that fill my mind with white eternity
to comprehend the spinning of the world.

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