Jesus, God in Gold

I love this poem.  I read it every autumn.  It is a perfect thing.  I share it here with you all.

Under the Goldwood Tree

I have brought back with me today

From the gold arches down one street

The sense of having scorched my face

With too much leaning into heat

Hour after hour.

This side and that, white clapboard walls

Glowed amber with the lamplight cast

From vaulting of gold fire.  My cheeks

Burned happy, flame-lit, as I passed

Under each bower.

One moment I will keep for years,

When over me one tree, all sun,

Soared dome like, and I stepped inside

God's mind, the breathless awe, the One

Who thinks in gold.

My face still burns from that fierce dome,

Or as it burns when I bend low 

Close over Jesus in the Mass

That radiant slake, that luminous O

By God ensouled.

Could I but keep that smouldering sense 

Of too much gazing into light!

If joy is looking up to God,

Oh, may that vision, scorching bright,

burn gold in me

Here in time's shadows, and my face

Show golden shining of desire.

"Where got you that irradiant look?"

"Down from God's mind:  the Dome of Fire,

The Golden Tree."

Dark Father, Root and Bough, the Son,

The eternal Burgeon, for our fall

Made golden Jesus; and the hushed 

Enduring Spirit shaping all 

In Folded rest

My love to Each, But ah! that WORD

Through Whom God's inmost thoughts are told,

He dazzles and puts out my eyes

with beauty....Jesus, God in gold.

Him I love best!

Father John Duffy, C.SS.R.