Windhover meditation

My heart in hiding,
surging, cheering
for the tiny master of the air --

How quickly then
Changed my meditation:
How beauty, courage, life
Must find the fearful
Grace to let go,
To fold and bow
To crumple the pride
And the mastery.
Then, born again past life
Into Beyond,
The fire that breaks from thee then,
My Lord, more lovely, more dangerous...

Than what?
From what is my heart hiding?
From the painful truth,
Of Christ’s dying into life,
And calling us to follow,

As the drudge of plowing
Polishes the share to shine,
And embers must break themselve
Open to reveal the fire
Beneath the ash,

So life’s own grit
Grinds away our tarnish,
And death itself
Breaks open the shell
That hides the glory within.

Let me learn to bow
With grace,
To diminish that
I might show forth
More fully.

****************

Meditation Nov. 9, 2007
Based on Gerard Manley Hopkins' The Windhover at www.bartleby.com