Soon I fell asleep, overcome with fatigue and delight. In dreams of unspeakable joy--of restored friendships; of revived embraces; of love which said it had never died; of faces that had vanished long ago, yet said with smiling lips that they knew nothing of the grave; of pardons implored, and granted with such bursting floods of love, that I was almost glad I had sinned--thus I passed through this wondrous twilight. I awoke with the feeling that I had been kissed and loved to my heart's content; and found that my boat was floating motionless by the grassy shore of a little island.

 

George MacDonald – Phantastes, A Fairie Romance for Men and Women

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver
New and Selected Poems

The Song of Daniel

Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;

       Wisdom and power are his.

He changes times and seasons;
       He sets up kings and deposes them.

He gives wisdom to the wise

       And knowledge to the discerning.

He reveals deep and hidden things

       He knows what lies in darkness,

       And light dwells with Him.

I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers:

       You have given me wisdom and power,

You have made known to me what we asked of you,

You have made known to us the dream of the king. 

Daniel 2:20-23