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Oh, how I love Your greens,
     Your blues, Your browns, Your golds.

They were my first glimpse of You,
     my first-time, adolescent crush.

I loved them in my pine and my maples, (my trees),
     in the mint plants in my father´s garden,

And then in every ferny, piney, maple-y corner
Of my most-beloved spot on this earth:
     in every drop of Wabansee water,
     in every whispering Lady Pine,
     in every stone, every barkey nook,
     in every hoof-print and glint of fox eye.

And now, here, I love You in palm fronds,
     in aloof and unreliable blue-grey mountains,
     in every twisty Mara branch,
     in every torrid river run
     and in every brown, or gold, or pink face,
     especially those faces that remind me
          of how I belong to them,
          and how I belong to You.

And yet, in our New Love,
I love Your White.
     Your bare and tender and vulnerable form,
     so easily forgotten,
     or trampled to dust underfoot,
     or received, unheeded and unnoticed, in my heart.

I love to look at You.
And--might it shock You if I weren´t Your spouse?--
I love to touch You:
     to hold You and to give You to others,
     to give You to my sisters,
     to give You to my girls-
          never have I felt so much a mother
          as when I help You to feed Your children,
          and never so full
          as when You feed me.

And I know
     that at the end of this life
     other greens, blues, browns, and golds await me.
And I trust that they will be
     more beautiful still
     than those that I´ve loved on this earth.

But my greatest comfort lies in knowing
     that You Yourself,
     my own Spouse,
     my own Creator,
     my own King,
     wait for me on that other side
          where mountains do not crumble,
          rivers never run dry,
          maple trees live forever,
          broken hearts are mended,

And we all blend into You,
Home, in Your Heart.