In the beauty of holiness,
like dew from the womb of the morning,
in silence and mystery,
I have begotten you.

—verse adapted from Psalms 110

•••

Beauty arrives every day,
the holiest of things shrouded

in silence and mystery, emerging
from the womb of the morning

where we cannot see—unlike those
whose vision enlivens in the dark,

the owl sitting sentinel, ready
to push off from its perch

to hunt what moves in the night.
The bats that do likewise,

then return to their lair to sleep
when the sun appears.

Any number of creatures
do their best work at night,

in the sheltering space of
shadows, while other

daytime beasts bask in
the fresh light birthed daily,

all of us created by what has
begotten us, the very definition

of silence and mystery.

•••

(for Joan Stockbridge)