twelve Petrarchan sonnets (2)

Ascensiontide

BEHOLD the angles chanting psalms of light
hear thrushes weaving tapestries of song
while swallows, wrens, and warblers, sing along
stitching shrouds of music, clear and bright
and lo, the earth, with warbled shrouds bedight
now elemental spirits surge in throngs
to place each budding leaf where it belongs
whose springing power works both day and night
the power by which the stone was rolled away,
the light restored within the blind man’s eyes,
the light that’s called “the Life,” “the Truth,” “the Way”
and now I see that nothing’s lost that dies
in this the season when the Lord shall say
“If I be lifted up, all things with me shall rise.”