Found

I heard the birds this winter morn
Sing crisp and clear
Though Winter’d just begun
Its stint this year
And Spring was far from born

I had to think
The world tuned strange
Omen of the earth turned warmer
Or of the mind turned old
To think quick beating flutter
Could not sound joy
Even in the cold

I went out on yesterday’s tracks
To find out among the snow
The thing that I had lost
Beside the bootprint
I would know
Then thought how I was searching
For purpose
In my life to show

Seeking best to follow God’s track
And in His Holy Name
As if it were not enough
To find my own steps back
Unless they were the same

Yesterday I followed the angle of the light
So soft here in the North
As though by angels brushed forth
In long strokes
Across the sparkling white

When at last I came upon my track
I had to think
Should I turn back
Or follow on the further link?

So I listened among the pine
For the still small voice of life divine
A hopeless case
in the varied wood and snow
To find so small a thing
Among the winter blow

Then in the quiet of the wood
I saw the birds in feast on berries
Plumb and round and good
Well more than enough
For little hearts to sing

There it was
In the most unlikely place;
The soft bed of a low fern face
While on my knees to gather low
I looked up to see a cup of snow
Held among the needles’ lingers
Like an offering
On God’s fingers