A Poem for Quaker Meeting-8/10/08

Often, when I go into Quaker Meeting for Worship, I'll bring a book, something of spiritual importance to me. Something I feel can teach me something. But mostly a book that will help me move into a space where I am open to God. Or at least closer to that place. Usually, I just open the book randomly and read the passage or poem or verse that opens before my eyes. Today I took a book of Wendell Berry poems, and opened to the following, which fit just fine.....

To the Unseeable Animal

Being, whose flesh dissolves
at our glance, knower
of the secret sums and measures,
you are always here,
dwelling in the oldest sycamores,
visiting the faithful springs
when they are dark annd the foxes have crept to their edges.
I have come upon pools
in streams, places overgrown
with the woods' shadow,
where I knew you had rested,
watching the little fish
hang still in the flow;
as I approached they seemed
particles of your clear mind
disappearing among the rocks.
I have walked deep in the woods
in the early morning, sure
that while I slept
your gaze passed over me.
That we do not know you
is your perfection
and our hope. The darkness
keeps us near you.