‘The Hill’ by Dr. Emory Jones

The swollen hill is pregnant with the Spring,
A promise of a resurrection day,
A warm renewal, life in everything
Is bursting forth like perfumed blooms of May
And now it will be constant joy to pray
To smiling God and look to a pale blue sky
And dance and flutter like the butterfly.

The hill is streaked with yellow, brown, and green
And days burn out like charcoal on the grill
That under glaring skies we’re caught between
The steamy afternoons that seem to fill
Our souls with ennui and remembered thrill
Of finding God who doesn’t seem to be
As near as when we were in harmony.

The forlorn naked hill is brown and bare
Surrounded by the woods of deadly hue
It is as if the world is dying there.
With mound as grave and sobbing sky, dark blue
With boiling glowering clouds like witches’ brew
For all the beauty in which the woods are clad
We have our gnawing doubts which leave us sad.

The hill is silent in its shroud of snow
While icy winds now shiver naked trees
That stand like frozen sentinels of woe
And shredded clouds pursued by winter breeze
Flee across the sky as our disease
Of sin condemns us to a Godless state
Of desperate pain we dare not contemplate.

The hill reflects the seasons as they pass
On days of luscious light or gloomy gray
But our fragile hearts, as weak as glass,
Depend upon our nature’s constant play
But gracious God is there.  He may display
Himself in smiling sky or thunder cloud
And even in the hill with snowy shroud.

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