A losing entry in a hymn text contest:

From nothing you made all that is,
and all that is will come to dust.
Through every change, we know still this:
You keep and care for each of us.

In you we live and move and are,
O God, creator of the world.
Your wisdom shines in every star,
your life in each new leaf unfurled.

Then give us minds to know your works
and give us hearts to seek your ways
between the daystar and the dirt
where we live out our given days.

So may we sing your praise as one:
Your works of love rejoice in you,
and when creation's days are done,
O God, create all things anew. Amen.

I entered this text in a hymn contest on the theme “God the Creator,” seeking hymns for a proposed new ecumenical feast (though not in the Catholic Church, as far as I know): “The primary focus of the feast is on God’s creative action which then calls forth the human response of thankful praise for God’s creating and sustaining action; a commitment to responsible stewardship; lament and repentance for destruction caused by human greed and apathy; and hope for a restored and renewed creation.”

I’ve done plenty before in the “lament and repentance” line, as well as the “responsible stewardship” line. What appealed to me here was the option of “thankful praise” and “hope.” So I focused on that, while also hewing to the contest’s guidelines: “The text should be written in an accessible poetic style that lends itself to singing. It should be contemporary and inclusive and avoid the use of binary language, especially with respect to gender. The text should be appropriate for ecumenical settings, with the possibility of at least one stanza that would be appropriate for an interfaith context. The total length of the text should not exceed four stanzas.”

Four stanzas can give you a lot of leeway on total length, but a simple, four-line tune seemed appropriate for what I had in mind. (I eventually chose the tune OLD 100TH, perhaps best known as “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”) That means sixteen lines total, instead of my usual twenty-four. I decided I liked the challenge of trying to say something true, but also heartfelt and (I hope) beautiful in a tighter format than usual. I liked the result, but there were over a hundred entries in the contest, and today I received an email listing someone else as the winner. C’est la vie. I can still post it here.

Creation on the exterior shutters of Hieronymus Bosch‘s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1490–1510) By Hieronymus Bosch – Originally uploaded to the English Wikipedia by w:User:Blankfaze., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148810

The day of wrath, the day of doom
their graves will open wide,
and I will gather them for you
the myriads who have died,

as once I gathered every one
in ever grasping hands
who wheeled beneath the moon and sun
and took them from the dance.

That none should have still more to mourn,
I bid their music cease;
the old, the young, the yet-unborn
I gather into peace.

And even you: I stilled your tongue
and laid you down to rest,
but ever since, my Lord, you've sung
the music I love best.

That day I'll lay my sickle down
that cut their brittle stalks
and take my fiddle up to sound
a new and endless waltz.

Then all the sleepers will awake
to dance in triple time;
you will take each hand you made
and reel in perfect rhyme

where cherubim like mirror-balls
revolve above your throne.
Rhythm stronger than any pulse
will rattle in their bones.

And I will cast aside my cloak
as you cast off the night
to tread the steps your wisdom spoke
there in your endless light.

The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut, from the Nuremberg Chronicle of Hartmann Schedel – https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/390220, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=490534

Because the birthday and the wedding anniversary fall in the same week.

I've known you longer than I haven't, love,
and wed almost as long as I was not.
Most of my life dovetails into this groove,
the strongest joint, and perfect in its slot.

Oh, but the wood has weathered, even so.
Sometimes it sticks, but jiggle it just right
the doors move free.  Even these fixed things grow
and sink and settle, creaking in the night.

A comfortable sound, not heard afar,
I'm used to now, as you are used to me,
with each of us forever who we are
and neither of us who we used to be.

The nails will rust, boards splinter, shingles part:
Time will not touch the dovetail of our hearts.

File:Barn, northwest corner, detail – dovetail notches and stabilization support – Trump-Lilly Farm, Hinton, Summers County, WV HABS WVA,45-HINT.V,1-41.tif O’Connell, Kristen, transmitter; Nicely, John, photographer; Nicely, John, delineator; McDonald, Tracy, delineator; Condie, Joe, delineator By https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/wv0531.photos.381877p, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34526236

Sunday’s readings combined the description of the heavenly city in Revelation with the promise of Christ and the Father making their dwelling with us:

Come and make of me your dwelling.
Take my ways; inhabit them.
Let my earth become your heaven:
Make me your Jerusalem.

I would be your holy city,
heart of stone made crystal bright:
all my frantic rush-hours stilling,
windows spilling over light.

You the silence at the center:
Here the temple, Lord, is you.
Fill my shadows with your splendor,
brighter far than sun or moon.

But this heart you gave: I've filled it,
left no corner for your berth.
Come, O carpenter, and build it;
make your heaven of my earth.

Not my handiwork—I know it—
ever could construct your throne,
nor the walls in their twelve courses.
You must build, who are the stone.

Come, and make in me your kingdom;
let my old things pass away.
Streets and alleys, change and bring them
all transformed into your day.

Folio 55r of the Bamberg Apocalypse depicts the angel showing John the New Jerusalem, with the Lamb of God at its center. By Auftraggeber: Otto III. oder Heinrich II. – Bamberger Apokalypse Folio 55 recto, Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, MS A. II. 42, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=618995

You speak a word that prunes us:
You love us, and we bleed.
The mercy that renews us
uproots us, thorn and weed.
You cut away these branches—
they're burned but not consumed.
We're only dust and ashes,
but you will make us bloom.

You take our cold convictions,
the vows we made and broke,
wrung through your crucifixion,
sung in the cockerel's crow,
and turn them into mercy.
Your alchemy redeems.
The empty nets are bursting;
the mortuary teems.

You harrowed earth and heaven
to draw us through the dark
where thirty silver pennies
shine out among the stars.
The sea gives up its flotsam,
and sweet now runs its brine.
The briar crown has blossomed—
dead branches drip with wine.

R. ellipticus var. obcordatus leaves and flowers By Franz Xaver – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15635394

From the sudden storm's tornadoes
and the sirens going off
and the radar still updating—
now deliver us, O God.
Yet for safety and for shelter
as the danger passes o'er
while the world outside's a welter—
for all this, we thank you, Lord.

From the asphalt shingles flying
or the buckling of the walls
that would leave us naked, lying—
now deliver us, O God.
For the tedium of waiting
huddled on the bathroom floor
'til the siren's slow abating—
for all this, we thank you, Lord.

From the slumber of complacence
under quiet skies and broad
that fill, in a blink, with hailstones—
now deliver us, O God.
For the turning of the weather
and the end of every storm—
May we come through all together—
for all this, we thank you, Lord.

A tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma, 1999. The funnel is the thin tube reaching from the cloud to the ground. The lower part of this tornado is surrounded by a translucent dust cloud, kicked up by the tornado’s strong winds at the surface. The wind of the tornado has a much wider radius than the funnel itself. By Daphne Zaras – http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165

I watched the paper wasps with trepidation
build up a nest in a corner of the porch,
and yet there's something in their dedication:
The urge to build cathedrals still endures.

It's after Easter.  Spring has finally flourished,
though April's rains are bleeding into May.
Yet through those storms so much we bear has burgeoned.
The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away.

Today a blue jay found the nest.  I thought of
my teenage son, the fridge's open door.
He ripped the paper back to steal the larvae.
Oh. blessèd be the great name of the Lord.

And just like that, there is no nest, no blue jay:
an empty corner shielded from the sun.
A single wasp, already chewing paper,
patrols the ceiling where its hope was hung.

Grow up, my jay, my larva, and grow outward
to tear the paper back that holds you in.
You will be torn.  The rain will still fall downward,
and you will build these paper nests again.

A young paper wasp queen (Polistes gallicus) is founding a new colony. The nest was made with wood fibers and saliva, and the eggs were laid and fertilized with sperm kept from last year. Now the wasp is feeding and taking care of her heirs. In some weeks, new females will emerge and the colony will expand. The timespan between the older and more recent photos is about one month 1 – The nest with only a few cells. * 2 – New cells being made with mashed fibers and saliva. * 3 – A caterpillar was caught and is being chewed to feed the larvae. * 4 – Feeding the larvae. * 5 – Using the wings as a fan to cool down the larvae. * 6 – The wasp guarding her heirs. By Alvesgaspar – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3872148

I will not ask for what I want;
I wouldn't dare presume.
I shut my hope away to haunt
a locked and bolted room.

What am I is I ask to see,
when blessèd are the blind?
Could I allow mysef to be
so faithless and unkind?

Besides, he said—his word is sure—
the clean of heart see God,
and well he knows my heart heart impure,
so I shall see him not.

But blest are they that have not seen!
If I could but believe.
For sure, those meadows fresh and green
would give me some reprieve

from longing that will only grow,
though it pass not my lips,
to see what no one else could show
and none can counterfeit.

Yet something that will not be mocked
cries, “Lord, I want to see!”
until you come where doors are locked
and show your wounds to me.

Doubting Thomas – Google Art Project By Unknown – illuminator – hgFUz6bXaLmUQQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22185693

There's movement in your empty house;
they're cleaning it to sell,
your life stripped off and blown about
like shingles in a gale.

Your daughter says it's eighteen months
since all your storms have ceased.
They'll fix the house like it was once,
and maybe you'll have peace.

You held your anger like a light,
and like a light it burned
a comfort in the lonely night,
all other comfort spurned.

She says you broke at last and called—
you'd cut us off by then,
ensconced in silence like a wall.
Was that our punishment?

You built that wall up stone by stone,
all stacked and mortared tight.
God bless all those who die alone,
and you alone were right.

No hurricane could bring it down
'til Gabriel should blow
a trumpet seven times around
the walls of Jericho.

But God who saw inside those rooms
where you lived on alone
can make even the rubble bloom
when all our winds have blown.

Waurika Oklahoma Tornado Front-Lit Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=850422