Idols of Life: Psalm 115

The living trunk now dead,
    A static slice of life.
Its marrow has been bled
    By ax and saw and knife.

A moment caught in time,
    A figure carved in wood,
A slice of life divine,
    Eternal in its mood.

Placed high upon a shelf
    For all around to see,
Its glory in itself,
    It points not unto thee.

The truth the form has missed
    Is that life always grows,
And that which once was is
    A life anew to know.

All mortal life we find
    Flows from the one above,
His life that lies behind
    All nature that we love.

Yet mortal life is not
    The same as life on high,
Each day our lives are fraught
    With changing nature’s sigh.

But nature holds on tight
    To changeless deity,
His coalescing light
    With always more to see.

Beauty never ending,
    His mysteries unbound.
Story always moving,
    New truth is ever found.

These icons of my mind
    Hold nothing to his form.
Eternity will find
    New glories evermore.