Poetry: When Love Walked Along the Shore by N.C. Krueger

When Love Walked Along the Shore

by N.C. Krueger

Before the light was shed from dark,
Before the song of loon or lark,
Before earth’s first-fruits were revealed,
Before we walked on lake or field,
Before the stars were hung above,
Before the cosmos, there was Love.

And Love made Daughter Earth the queen
Of sky and water, mud and green;
And Love came dancing from the sun
To open flowers one by one.
Then by the rivers’ rush and roar,
Love walked along Forever’s shore.

And Love delighted in the Lake,
The whitecaps’ rise, the seagull’s wake,
And in the honeycomb of land—
Marsh and river, cliff and sand,
Rocky shore and evergreen,
Plashing fish and humming bee.

He took from in his hand a vein
That joined to heart in unrent chain,
And planted it in moss and mud;
In Forever Land, Love laid his blood.
And from that seed, the world-Rose grew
When all was song, when earth was new.

But now the light is spare and dim
And colors pale, and forests slim;
The seagull lonely skyward soars,
And surges crash on empty shores.
Yet, here, in inner Earth of earth,
The Rose still blooms a promise-birth.

Before the ending of the day,
Before the night can have its way,
Before the world-Rose bends its head
And life itself wilts unto death,
Before the stars fall from above,
Before the twilight, come ye Love.