A Country Church   i am a little church (no great cathedral) far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities -i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest i am not sorry when sun and rain make april my life is the life of the reaper and the sower; my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving (finding and losing and laughing and crying ) children whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness around me surges a miracle of unceasing birth and glory and death and resurrection: over my sleeping self float flaming symbols of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains i am a little church (far from the frantic world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature - i do not worry if longer nights grow longest: i am not sorry when silence becomes singing winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to merciful Him Whose only now is forever: standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence (welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness) e.e. cummings