Reading Earth

by Vernie Lynn DeMille

 

Something is written in the sky,

Drawn through the stars and deepening blue

In a language I have known since birth.  

Not in serif, crossbar, line, or loop

But sweep of cloud and beams of light.

A message to an illiterate Earth.

 

Something is written in the soil.

Scratched by plow or disc or rake

In every line drawn new with spring.

No language stars have ever writ

Or eagle voiced in passing flight

A new creation, an unknown thing.

 

Something is written in the leaf

A novel of what grows from thought

Its veins a testament to man

An answer to “what if we could?”

Proof that thought, if given time,

Harvests an act from well laid plans.

 

Something in the words that speak

From blossom, bud, and dusty fruit

Between the sky and dampened earth,

Creations be of the Creator’s seed,

They sing the story of ourselves,

Storytellers from our very birth.

 

And something in the hand that holds

The rake the hoe, the shriveled seed

Remembers where his heart began:

From thought to dream to labor long,

Of beauty born in sweat and blood.

Stands above, lives below, lifts his faith and proclaims “I am.”