Hsi Tou (Bamboo Forest) - A Poem

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.