Sacrament
Under the right conditions—
soil, water—the seed sprouts
into a pair of impulses: down,
up. It grows roots, trunk,
branches, leaves, a life.
Years pass. Decades.
Sun, rain, clouds, snow.
Bark hardens, dead limbs
drop, leaves unfurl, reach
skyward, fall. Fruit ripens,
tumbles, rots. Light feeds dark;
dark, light; sap rises in secret,
moving through what is rough
and what is wood, through
what is and will become
the heart.
A Word
A raven launches herself
and flies out of sight.
The empty branch trembles.
Sacred Ground
You’re likely to miss it:
your senses no longer attuned
to the sacred, nor to groves
of trees. You can recognize
a forest, sure, or a decorative
Japanese maple, or a row
of pink-blossomed cherries
lining a boulevard. But
the difference between a grove,
say, and a copse, or just a clump,
that’s nothing to bother
the busy post-modern mind.
You’ll probably walk right past.
But if, somehow, you do find
the sacred grove, if you tremble
slightly and remove your shoes,
if you gird your loins,
whatever that means, and step
foolishly, bravely, among
the leafy branches, what do you
expect? Will the earth shake?
Will the trees bow down to you?
Will some goddess extend her
hospitable hands in welcome?
Oh, mortal, must everything
always be about you?
The god is away on business.
(stanza break)
The goddess has many concerns.
If you wait in the dappled
shadows, if you let your eyes
adjust to the play of light
and dark, you will begin to see,
as if it were just arriving or
suddenly revealing itself, as if
it had not been there all along,
a figure. You know exactly what
it will ask of you, mortal. You,
who wrestle with overwhelming
information. You, who keep track
of earthquakes, of the rise and
fall of governments, of all
the voices weighing in. You,
who live in one small corner
of the ever-expanding universe.
Is it any wonder that the gods
are busy elsewhere? The wonder
is that God is here at all. Just here,
among this copse of brick
buildings, in that grove of laptops,
in this thicket of words. Oh,
mortal, unless the sacrifice
you carry in your trembling
arms is your own beating heart,
why offer it at all?
