Ruth's song

Entreat me not to leave thee,
or to return
from following after thee:
for whither thou goest,
I will go;
and where thou lodgest,
I will lodge:
thy people shall be my people,
and thy God my God:
Where thou diest, will I die,
and there will I be buried:
the LORD do so to me,
and more also,
if ought but death part thee and me.

Ruth 1:16-17 (KJV)

We'll make our way in blithe, concerted grace
within the sun's refracted benediction
which warms the tender, tiny, arcing space
wherein resounds my heart's truest petition:
that we, though stumbling dazed through rayless reach
of night and loss, hold fast to covenant
which binds our hollowed hearts, defying each
reverberation of our keening chant
and as we glean the fields of gleaming gold
and taste their hard-won grains of honeyed wheat
that seeds of fresh joy bloom within our souls
and melodies invite our knowing feet
back to our allemande of blue-tinged leap,
until we rest on wings of cloudless sleep.