O earth—friend—how nice you look today—

your soft, pink blankets spread across the sky,

inviting with the gentle touch of dawn.

Your brown and rusted leaves you flag-like fly,

a kindred spirit calling me to stay.

 

Do you know how much I want to stay?

 

My whole heart withers as I step away—

fading, shriveled, crispy—through the door,

far from the tree-clad hills and fields of grass,

and though I see you less, I feel you more

in the steady ache of absence every day.

 

Do you know I miss you every day?

 

How do people live inside a box?

I dread the shock of bare geometry—

every line so straight it grates the brain,

the angles, always right—dramatically—

forcing my sad soul into the stocks.

 

But in your wooded realm there are no stocks.

 

You are the world that rambles far and free—

effortless, sophisticated art—

not the forced, simplistic work of man—

a grand imagination of God’s heart

that bows to Him and calls like home for me.

 

How I wish you might be home to me!

 

But here the walls oppress on every side—

on cold and flat, unbending walls and floors

the expectations echo—LOUD DEMANDS—

and duty binds like locks on all the doors

that will not budge however hard I’ve tried.

 

If only you could know how hard I’ve tried. 

 

How “skillfully” man frames you in a square,

catching but a fraction of your face—

so close, but firmly held away by glass.

And I am lost—I cannot touch your place

or see the fields or mountains given there.

 

Will I ever see the mountains there?

 

But oh—friend—if I could get away,

out there beneath your canopy of blue

to rest—to wonder at God’s handiwork—

to run as free as leaves of Autumn do,

if I ever got that chance, I’d stay.

 

Do you know how much I want to stay?