Quaker Wisdom for Today

There is a spirit which I feel
Can I, imprisoned, body-bounded, touch
The starry robe of God, and from my soul
My tiny Part, reach forth to his great Whole
And spread my Little to the infinite Much,
When Truth forever slips from out my clutch,
And what I take indeed, I do but dole
In cupfuls from a rimless ocean-bowl
That holds a million million million such?
And yet, some Thing that moves among the stars,
And holds the cosmos in a web of law,
Moves too in me: a hunger, a quick thaw
Of soul that liquefies the ancient bars,
As I, a member of creation, sing
The burning oneness binding everything.

-- Kenneth Boulding, There is a Spirit: The Nayler Sonnets