Trees

If I ever create a religion
it will be the worship of trees
those most benign and
indiscriminate of beings,
pouring their oxygen over us.

In the Beginning
there was only Tree:
Its branches divided
earth and sky;
Its roots united
earth and water

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

catch the heart,
their branches striding
wide and high, their leaves
slipping against the sky
like the coins of light
sun strikes through water

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

never harmed anyone
--except accidentally, crushing
the logger cutting it down
--not from malice
--not by choice
--not even in self-defence
--by chance alone compelled,
unwitting instrument
of the laws of physics--
and of karma in the shape of an axe

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

cast long shadows
around themselves, trees
cast spells, spilling darkness,
scattering light, confusing
secrecy with mystery, confusing
second sight with love at first, confusing
happiness with almost everything
--a soft touch on a slow impulse
--the cry of a young wind
tearing the clouds apart
--the mutterings of an old mind
left to itself and now
more seer than sinister--

I plunder the grass for them
my throat quickens and gleams
in the cold light of trees leaning,
enlacing their boughs in a web,
ensnaring wild dreams

--of a tree absorbing me
into its cellulose; squeezing me
through ever-finer filaments,
the busy chlorophyll extrudes me
into the air in the form of a flower,
where a bee sucks, shedding pollen,
satisfied the craving blossom swells--

an apple hangs, waiting for the next
blundering idiot to come along, again--
and again, and again, it is necessary
to climb trees; to struggle from one odd
and wonderful angle to the next,
to the dizzying tip, where,
silhouetted against the moon,
a hairy angel croons a guttural hymn

Trees, I'll pray,
let me climb
trees

singing
--in the Beginning
there was only Tree--
the Idea of a tree