Goddess Earth

O I am earth's idolater! Truth's peak

Is here when the head bows, touching dense clay:

In the blue beyond are time's foundations laid,

Downward the mystery of the Eternal plunges,

Inverted pyramid whose triumphant top

Of absolute all-penetrating force

Is clay—source of deep hurt, peril to life—

Smallest among God's self-disclosing deeds—

Because sheer point and acme of miracle!

Blind are we, dreading or despising earth.

She comes so dense by concentrated dream.

Grandeur and grace of granite—fearful strength—

But O the unbreakable beatitude

That is God's grip when rapture is all rock!

A dumbness and a deafness and a dark-

Intensity of ignorance—till with eyes

Deep-shut we search for the deathless Self within:

Then our lost limbs measure the earth's profound!

Therefore I ever kneel and wait the Eternal's

Fullest epiphany with dust-worshipping brow:

Pitiless packed matter presses truth most near

And the vague clods are the Infinite's utmost power—

Divinity calm though trampled by human feet!

10-7-48

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