One Cedar Tree

          The cedar tree outside the window

                                                                   is one

                                                                             of many.

          What prayers are said to it?

          What voices are raised

                                              to sacred blue sky

                         within its branches?

                   Stars

                           illuminate its form. The moon comes around

          in a repetitious pattern,

                                              and the sun

          slopes down into a familiar sea.

          (They know the tree must be the one god

                         because of its life they are sure.)

          What do I know?

                                    Only the prayers I send up on cedar smoke,

                                                                                   on sage.

                           Only the children who are bone-deep echoes

                                                                      of a similar life.

                      Only the woman who sleeps generations

                                                                              in the land.

                                    A continuum flows like births

          because somehow

                           the sun gallops in most mornings on the

                eastern horizon.

                           The moon floats familiar

                                                                   but changing.

                 And I eat, breathe, and pray to some strange god

                              who could be a cedar tree

                                                  outside the window.