Je Crois En L'Amour

I believe in love
Which slumbers and quickens
Hidden within the grain.

And when I inhale my springtime
In refreshing summits of the liturgy
And see all the trees and green wheat,
A tremor awakens in the very depth
Of my immortal being: and adoration
Sounds like legendary clocks
That intone their muffled chant
In the heart of the ocean.

And when the giant sun of my summer
Has thrashed the gold from off my sheaves
I've made a fortune: those are my chants, my coins,
My praises of Our Lady.

O brothers, come join me,
Drink the wine of Melchisedech
While all these rejuvenated hills
Clothed with the vines of Isaiah
Sing praise.

For thus are poems born
In my crucible, this heart of a man,
And in the core of my sundered stone.

-Frère Paul Quenon, translated by Thomas Merton