for the Feast of the Ascension (Apr. 30/June 3)

We’d become accustomed to the wonders
that he worked—the wheel that drives the mill
with water from the ever-living river,
overbrimming from the till and spilling
off the lip, to grind our grain; the plunger

pressuring the strata’s hidden sink
to syphon up to every home a wellspring
from the well of everlasting drink;
the chimneyed wick, ever-burning giver
casting shadows from our nightly dwellings,

fastening the light to flame and flare.
But when that burnished dawn he lofted truly
from the earth, and with the wind he shifted
and updrifted from our view, he took us too,
ever-earthen creatures of the air.

You can hear a conversation about this poem on the Reformed Journal Podcast.

Photo by Tibor Pinter on Unsplash