Wonder (noli me tangere)

You cannot hold fast to beauty.

It trickles like fine dust between your fingers,

Leaving a sparkle behind.

Like water

Over, into, through us …

We thirst again, but ah! we have been washed.

You might as well catch moonbeams,

Or ride the moment’s breeze into eternity,

Or hold one sweetness lasting on your tongue ..

So we mourn mortality.

We have lived enough to see things fade and falter,

To see bright sunrise dim to plodding day,

To know that tears will dry and laughter fail,

To know so much is fleeting, swift and gone!

To know no hands can hold or flesh contain.

To mourn our weakness.

Yet there is place beyond our hemmed in sky

Where all things lovely rest, and do not die.

And there is grace, and there is place enough –

Oh touch it not! Our clinging hands destroy.

It must ascend and to our Father go

While we sip glory’s drops and wait below.

We wait.

On stiffened knees we wait below.