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Sitting at the end of a lakeside dock,
with solid cedar boards below my chair
but ever-flowing water underneath,
I saw a cumulus cloud towering
like a holy city in the summer sky.

I thought of Psalm 19, the one beginning
“The heavens declare the glory of God.”
I phoned it up and read it twice, out loud,
offering my voice to the passing breeze
and to a startled flotilla of ducks.

We’re gifted in abundance. One is this:
perception of likeness—this is like that.
Perhaps that’s how we hold in memory
God’s promises, once drifting clouds change shape,
and those who shared those promises are gone.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Steven Peterson

Steven Peterson is a poet and playwright living in Chicago. His recent poems appear in Alabama Literary Review, America Magazine, The Christian Century, Dappled Things, First Things, The Windhover, and other journals. His plays have been produced around the USA. He is currently a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists.