Hsi Tou
by Annie Douglass Lima
God’s glory shows in all He’s made
I see it in the woods displayed
From mossy rocks in riverbed
To silver ferns in sunlight spread
And shrubs with shining leaves arrayed.
The green-clad mountains rising high
Loom misty-headed to the sky
Above the bamboo and the pines
All robed with lichen, draped with vines
Where brilliant blossoms catch the eye.
Cicadas’ piercing shrieks resound
Unseen, they fill the woods with sound
Bright black and yellow spiders sprawl
In tangled webs draped over all
While butterflies flit o’er the ground.
The forest, in a thousand ways –
The shady glens, the slanting rays,
Each frond, each blade, each leafy limb –
With one voice offers up a hymn
And lifts its hands in psalms of praise.
