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Turning to Light

Your Sleepless Shadow

Lost in the Unlimited

Being Here, Finally

Unquiet Dawn

Moon With Her Sail Full of Myths

Soft and Final Landing

Sacred Opulence

Moonset at Winter's End

Desolate and Perfect Now

Unfinished Invocation

An Audience of Stars and the Rest of It

Now and After the Reign of Galaxies

Liquid Heart

Rehearsal for Something Better

Startrail to the Absolute

Broken and Glorious Life

What to Pack For Your Departure

Rhapsody of the Realms

Irrepressible Flame

Vanishing in the Blazing Night

Beside the Still Fallen Sky

On the Trail Between Orchids and the Otherworld

Earth Cry

Some Things Beyond Dimension

Explorer in the Undivided

One Spark is a Galaxy

Unforgiven Rapture

Collective Dream

Now That You Are Infinite

Transcendence of Fury

What Little I Know

One With the Never-ending

Earthbound Supernova

The Majesty of Destruction

In the Infinite Now

Why We Love Dogs (A Little Something in Celebration of National Dog Day)

Postcards from Eons Past (Images from the James Webb Space Telescope)

Sanctuary of Flame

Microcosm

Glistening in the Dark

Walnut

Words Like Smoke and Sand

The First Iris

The Totality of You

Winter Meditation

The Language of Wonder

Storms of Jupiter

Digital Chains

Plunging to Heaven

On the Shores of Cepheus

Why We Love Dogs (A micropoem)

Ascension in Gold

Crucible of Light

In the Last Green Hours

The Angels of Hawksbill Mountain

Beyond the Gates of Orion

Sanctuary Within

Sitting With Stars

Light of the Tempest

Nucleus

Follow the Birdsong

Celestial Rite

One More Moon Beside Me

Legacy of Ash

Born in a Field of Light

Resurrection in Albemarle County

Dialogue With Silence

Moving Past the Dream

Deadly and Merciful Blue

Sky Full of Legends

On the Border of Earth and Being

Who You Really Are

Council of Stars

Scattered As One

Unfinished Bridge To the Infinite

Scenes from Within

Moon of Secrets

Memories of the Kingdom

In the Church of Ordinary Miracles

Finding Religion in Sperryville

Theater of Shadow and Light

Sapphire Birth

Web of Infinity

Voices from a Choir of Stars

Traveler in the Unseen

Into the Silence

A Soft Ascent

Through a Sacred Forest

Innocent Questions

 

Finding Religion in Sperryville



I wanted an early hereafter
so I drove to Sperryville,
though I knew God could be found
in the voices of rain
or the eyes of a dog,

I just wanted a day in someone's
toy village, and of course,
I found all the porches—
posing like Lady Liberty—
anyone could ever hope for
and those little fences and rivers
crazed with sanctity, brighter, even
than the tall servings of clouds—
mounds and mounds of
Victorian sweetness, bulging down
over steeples and cows and flags
and sad, rusted things . . .

Oh, and the mountains making a
sound like an anthem . . .

and that's when I heard it: reality
in the far distance of my spirit—
so far, yet grinding away at
the beauty bearing down,

because somewhere,
in a world that's burning,
someone is weeping over another
life stolen,
for no other reason than that life
was labeled less precious
than some others,

so now, how could I be a scholar of
the Universe or sing like Raphael
about the fruited plains,
when the graves are screaming
and hope is seething in
tear gas
and some children will never hear
their father say "Well done"?

How was I supposed to join the
green revival of the pastures—
and truly they can roll out scripture—
when all I know is Heaven's not here
till we pull it down
and see our splendor in each other?

Seeing all I came to see, nothing more,
I drove back towards my one last life,
with Sperryville,
clean-cut old preacher,
faded and small
behind me.


Patricia Joan Jones





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