What Secret Purple Wisdom
‘un-terrestrial pulse, deep as heaven, that folds you’ /
What word informs the world,
and moves the worm along in his blind tunnel?
What secret purple wisdom tells the iris edges
to unfold in frills? What juiced and emerald thrill
urges the sap until the bud resolves
its tight riddle? What irresistible command
unfurls this cloud above this greening hill,
or one more wave — its spreading foam and foil —
across the flats of sand? What minor thrust
of energy issues up from humus in a froth
of ferns? Delicate as a laser, it filigrees
the snow, the stars. Listen close — What silver sound
thaws winter into spring? Speaks clamor into singing?
Gives love for loneliness? It is this
un-terrestrial pulse, deep as heaven, that folds you
in its tingling embrace, gongs in your echo heart.
Luci Shaw is a celebrated poet and writer in residence at Regent College. Reprinted with permission of the author from The Green Earth: Poems of Creation (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002).
Also in this Issue
Issue 23 / May 28, 2015- Editors’ Note
Issue 23: When the heart stops, poetry by Luci Shaw, the glory of an orchestra, and Harriet Tubman.
- Even Arteries Need a Sabbath
How the heart sustains itself over the 2.5 billion beats of a lifetime. /
- The Precise Magic of the Symphony
The modern orchestra produces order out of chaos, and something beautiful for the heart. /
- Black Moses
The mystical faith and no-nonsense tactics of the Underground Railroad’s most famous leader. /
- Wonder on the Web
Issue 23: Links to amazing stuff