The Canonical Hours Dick Allen

MATINS

Risen at this most ungodly hour, God,

When stars evaporate, grayness takes the form
Of mountain ridge and forest, small bats swarm
Into the eaves above our empty beds,
We who follow you, who have withstood
The self’s preclusion in the reptile’s dream,
Seam ourselves to you, seam unto seam,
And praise you and adore you, our wayfaring Lord.

Now as the young lamb knock-knees toward the light,

The infant wakes beneath smudged windowpanes,
When hidden colors of the woods and fields
Call back your strokings, to emerge as bright
Twists of flowers tousling dark lanes,
We hallow and hosanna all your sun anneals.

PRIME

We hallow and hosanna all your sun anneals.

Our faces touched, our bodies warned, we sing
As shepherds to the hills, as fishermen who fling
Their nets upon the ocean when the light reveals
Vast schools beneath small boats that lift and heel
Before the wind. Lord, with your sun you bring
Such grace upon the world, such happenings
Of glory, were minds dancers, minds would reel!

We praise you who have given us this day.

The light itself is beauty, is eternal life.
No matter what shall happen, who shall fail,
Which prayers are answered and which fall away,
The darkness is dispelled, and on the Earth,
Grass, tree and mountain lie within your will.
TERCE

Grass, tree and mountain lie within your will,

Lord whom we thank. We thank you for this chance
To once again bear witness, for the dance
Of light on water, for the hawk’s high trill,
Roads in yellow woods, breeze or gale
That blows the pine and poplar east or west
Depending on your whim. Praying, we confess
We live within your grace by your avail.

But most we thank you, Lord, for giving us

Ability to love, to love each other, and
By practicing this love, to reach for you.
When lover and beloved reach across
Barbed wire or table and touch hand to hand,
A touch delivers what the heart holds true.

SEXT

A touch delivers what the heart holds true

And we are penitent. Forgive us, while the sun
Stands at its highest and no shadows run
Before us or behind. The soldier now renews
His plea that you might blunt the sword he drew
And raised above his land. Forgive each man
Who could not follow what he could not understand
So followed others who professed they knew.

Forgive us, give us solace. We have sinned,

Who have not cared enough, who left
Too many tasks undone, who disobeyed
Your highest biddings, who would win and win
When you would bid us lose. Give us belief.
Escort us, in your kindness, to the weeping glade.
NONES

Escort us, in your kindness , to the weeping glade.

There, let your justice be dispersed as evenly
As we would wish dispersion of your mercy
On those lives brightening and those which fade.
We love and labor for you, Lord, who robed
Our world in light and darkness. Tenderly,
Treat us, Lord, that we may come to be
More than those who spend their lives in trade.

For your purposes, so far beyond our dreams,

We offer you ourselves. The only price
We’d ask you pay is let our teeming world
Continue balancing between the great extremes
Of roar and silence. Curse or bless
You Lord, we still call you Lord.

VESPERS

You, Lord, we still call you Lord.

Though this might be the final setting of the sun
Into the hills. The work of daylight done,
Fields deserted and the tools all stored,
We gather now to listen to your word.
For others, for the others whose lives spin
Downwards more than ours, who may have sinned
Yet seek repentance, we would now be heard.

Comfort the old whose bodies are infirm,

Who thought by now that they might understand
More than they do, and yet are left
More puzzled than when crooked in parents’ arms
Help and heal and care. Reach out your hand
For those who can’t reach back. Be Thou their gift.
COMPLINE

For those who can’t reach back, be Thou their gift.

But for ourselves, Lord, for ourselves we ask
Light mercies, also. Show us truer tasks
Than those yet known to us. Although night drifts
Across our portion of the planet, you will lift
The darkness up again, and we shall bask
In sunlight when it ends - your cold death mask
Broken by re-dawning of belief.

We are as children now, who ask you guide

Us safely into sleep, and lead us through
The valley to still waters, pasture land
Green with the tall grass where brown spiders hide.
When hope seems ended, let us be with you,
Risen at this most ungodly hour, God.