I had not known such beauty could be hidden
Within the shelter of a word's embrace
Until I stood beside hope's ash-gray embers
And prayed to know the perfectness of grace.
I saw a grace expressed in grassy meadows,
In rain-swept hill, in budding boughs of spring;
In native instinct of the homing swallows;
In countless feathered lyrists' caroling.
Yet, still unsatisfied. I sought the fullness
Of grace that is today's sufficiency,
And when the answer came, fraught with unfoldment,
I marveled at its pure simplicity.
It flooded waiting thought with chords celestial;
Hope found renewal at that secret tryst;
Oh, this is grace: awareness of true being—
The conscious presence of the deathless Christ.
