(This Life) Part 7: Resilience
the miracle of life’s singularity
The sudden storm shatters the fencing,
Howling leaves the garden ravaged,
The revenant Mimosa uprooted –
Pixels, re-formed from frosted roots,
Fed seven saplings replacing the one –
Heard Jim shout, “Your tree’s coming down”;
With stilled heart watched its rending fall
In that singular moment its leaves
Curve through time – spent and un,
Airless, unlit noumenons –
Draw me into their unbeing
And I witness the startling
Resurrections of beasts and plants,
The crossings from IS to WAS to IS,
Exhausted hymns of the apple tree,
Once perfect seeds imperfected
Beneath the onslaught of each day,
Frames bent, memories dust decayed –
Fall all must, flesh, supple once, rust,
Waiting for that day when breathless,
Boxed we commingle with the dust –
Yet within these trembling leaves I sense
an unquenchable desire to be,
be linked to life’s singularity.
I cut level with the Earth, trim,
Daily water, feed fish and blood,
And, moons passing, amazed I watch
As springs another stem, greener,
Elastic rising past the dead skin of its past,
A miracle of resilience.
My kind of religion .