This Glorious Mountain Temple

Meijer Gardens July 2025

 

My Spirit is Uncaged by Paul Rardin

O to make the most Jubilant Song! Full of manhood, womanhood, infancy! Full of common employments–full of grain and trees. O the joy of my spirit–it is uncaged–it darts like lightning! It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, I will have thousands of globes and all times. One’s–self I sing, a simple separate person; I celebrate myself, and sing myself; A song of the rolling earth, andof words according. I sing the body electric; I sing the song of companionship. Come said the Muse, Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, Sing me the universal.

—Walt Whitman​​​

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Steeped in Burning Flowers

i will wade out by Eric Whitacre

i will wade out

till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers

i will take the sun in my mouth

and leap into the ripe air

alive with closed eyes

to dash against darkness

in the sleeping curves of my body

shall enter fingers of smooth mastery

with chasteness of sea-girls 

will i complete the mystery of my flesh

i will rise after a thous

and years lipping flowers

and set my teeth in the silver of the moon.

—e.e. cummings

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As There are Flowers by Colin Britt

Still must the poet as of old,
In barren attic bleak and cold,
Starve, freeze, and fashion verses to
Such things as flowers and song and you;

Still as of old his being give
In Beauty’s name, while she may live,
Beauty that may not die as long
As there are flowers and you and song.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

Under the Willow by Samuel Barber 

Under the willow tree

Two doves cry, two doves cry.

Under the willow tree

Two doves cry, ah oh!

Where shall we sleep, my love?

Whither shallwefly?

Where shall we sleep, my love?

Whither shall we fly?

The wood has swallowed the moon.

The fog has swallowed the shore.

The green toad has swallowed

The key to my door.

—Gian Carlo Menotti

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These Roots Have Never Forgotten

We Shall Walk Through the Valley arr. Undine Smith Moore

Ah Lord, we shall walk, shall walk in peace.

We shall walk through the valley in peace,

We shall walk through the valley in peace.

If Jesus, himself shall be our leader,

We shall walk through the valley in peace.

Lord, we shall walk, shall walk in peace.

There will be no trials there,

There will be no trials there.

If Jesus, himself shall be our leader,

We shall walk through the valley in peace.

Lord, we shall walk, shall walk in peace.

—Traditional Spiritual

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In the Night We Shall Go In by Imant Raminsh

In the night we shall go in,

we shall go in to steal

a flowering, flowering branch.

 

We shall climb over the wall

in the darkness of the alien garden,

two shadows in the shadow.

 

Winter is not yet gone,

and the apple tree appears

suddenly changed into

a fragment of cascade stars.

 

In the night we shall go in

up to its trembling firmament,

and your hands, your little hands

and mine will steal the stars.

 

And silently to our house

in the night and the shadow,

perfume’s silent step,

and with starry feet,

the clear body of spring.

—Pablo Neruda tr. Donald D. Walsh

 

Snilla Patea by Bjørn Kåre Odde

Odde has composed a melody reminiscent of Norwegian folk music for the violin and paired it with a wordless choral accompaniment.

 

To Propagate a Home by Ayanna Woods

We must have uncommon strength to face the wound

and refuse to let it wither.

 

We must have uncommon faith to plunge our hands into the land

And nurture an abandoned place.

 

They say it’s a lost cause—

They haven’t seen the new roots

Weaving through the dark.

 

They say it isn’t worth it—

They haven’t watched with joy

As each new bud emerges.

 

When they cut off a branch that they say is dying,

It takes uncommon faith to grow.

 

These roots have never forgotten

How to grab hold of the soil.

 

This branch has never forgotten

How to reach up toward the sky.

—Ayanna Woods

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This Glorious Mountain Temple, Nature

Sacred Place by Alex Burko

1. Amidah

 

“How softly these mountain rocks are adorned, and how fine and

reassuring the company they keep—their brows in the sky, their

feet set in groves and gay emerald meadows, a thousand flowers

leaning confidingly against their adamantine bosses, while birds

bees butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the air into

music—things frail and fleeting and types of permanence meeting

here and blending as if into this glorious mountain temple Nature

had gathered her choicest treasures, whether great or small to draw

her lovers into close confiding communion with her.”

 — John Muir to Teddy Roosevelt

on preserving Yosemite National Park

 

2. Shema

 

The earth says have a place, be what that place

requires; hear the sound the birds imply

and see as deep as ridges go behind

each other. (Some people call their scenery flat,

their only pictures framed by what they know:

I think around them rise a riches and a loss

too equal for their chart—but absolutely tall.)*

The earth says every summer have a ranch

that’s minimum: one tree, one well, a landscape

that proclaims a universe—sermon

of the hills, hallelujah mountain,

highway guided by the way the world is tilted,

reduplication of mirage, flat evening:

a kind of ritual for the wavering.

The earth says where you live wear the kind

of color that your life is (grey shirt for me)*

and by listening with the same bowed head that sings

draw all things into one song, join

the sparrow on the lawn, and row that easy

way, the rage without met by the wings

within that guide you anywhere the wind blows.

Listening, I think that’s what the earth says.

 — William Stafford

 

3. Mi Shebeirach

 

May the source of strength

Who blessed the ones before us

Help us find the courage

to make our lives a blessing

And let us say Amen.

 

Bless those in need of healing

with r’fuah sh’leimah

The renewal of body,

the renewal of spirit

And let us say Amen.

 — Traditional Jewish Prayer

 

4. Kaddish

 

“Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone,

like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.”

 — Rabindranath Tagore, 1861–1941

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5. Kaddish

“Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone,

like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.”

— Rabindranath Tagore, 1861–1941

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6.  Closing Prayer

 

In the dusk of the river, the wind

gone, the leaves grow still—

The beautiful poise of lightness,

The heavy world pushing toward it.

 

— Wendell Berry

Excerpt from “The Porch Over the River”

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