"Firmament" -- A Poem

Firmament—Psalm 57

A ladybug scratches across the page.

A lamb scampers after the ewe.

And we toil along the plane—

               Folding it into stairs and stories

               And thrusting toward the sky.

A turn of the book and the ladybug clings.

The lamb suckles quietly

               While his dam crops the grass,

               Dung dropping down to renew it.

And we push up towers and rockets.

Dear ladybug slips from the tilting leaf,

               Unshells her wings,

               And lifts away.

Lamb and mother bed down by a stream.

And we brood on rooftops, calling into the void.

We and the ladybug, we and the lamb

Dwell on the surface, die into the earth,

Leap up briefly or fly up as ash.

But one day we wake—

To see from above the LORD leaning down,

Unfolding the firmament to draw us up.

Graves will open, lambs lie with lions,

And we—with new eyes and arms and hearts—

Lift into fullness and glory foursquare.

©2015, Cindy Marsch