Wild Cathedrals
Light-eating spirits,
flora are ancestral forces.
Photosynthesizing,
they make divinity
visible to our blunt human sight:
Beech trees open their
copper arms
touch hair
greet and bless.
Silvery glade ferns bow,
exude antediluvian perfume.
Curling grapevine tendrils swing
in the wind of our passing.
The central flame,
the green light, rooted
ever-rising
is the mitochondrial matrix.
Its combustive heat
fed by pacifist chloroplasts
turns stardust into flesh:
Damsel-fly snaps open
peacock green wings
she is an elegant
kabuki dancer
suspended in flight
above the creek.
Bear cub strolls the path
a granddaughter walked last eve.
Coyote’s signature is written in
morning’s creek-side mud.
The still point
~ empty core of life’s axis ~
is the central beam
of wild cathedrals.
It holds up the night sky
to become evening’s
intimate roof
the only dome
vast enough to carry
human dreams.