Stray Birds

My evening came among the alien trees and spoke in a language which my morning stars did not know. 213 Night's darkness is a bag that bursts with the gold of the dawn. 214 Our desire lends the colours of the rainbow to the mere mists and vapours of life. 215 God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man's hands. 216 My sad thoughts tease me asking me their own names. 217 The service of the fruit is precious, the service of the flower is sweet, but let my service be the service of the leaves in its shade of humble devotion. 218 My heart has spread its sails to the idle winds for the shadowy island of Anywhere. 219 Men are cruel, but Man is kind. 220 Make me thy cup and let my fulness be for thee and for thine. 221 The storm is like the cry of some god in pain whose love the earth refuses. 222 The world does not leak because death is not a crack. 223 Life has become richer by the love that has been lost. 224 My friend, your great heart shone with the sunrise of the East like the snowy summit of a lonely hill in the dawn. 225 The fountain of death makes the still water of life play. 226 Those who have everything but thee, my God, laugh at those who have nothing but thyself. 227 The movement of life has its rest in its own music. 228 Kicks only raise dust and not crops from the earth. 229 Our names are the light that glows on the sea waves at night and then dies without leaving its signature.