It is the first red light of morning
and the others are praying outside with old songs,
sage and tobacco, while I have been dreaming
from the deep, the ancient,
taking in the red light rising
between the eucalyptus trees
and their fragrance.
They dropped three seeds in the shadows,
three deep shrines,
worlds becoming, I can hold them.
And the naked bark,
its spare intimacy
that peels back and reveals its other layers
deeper, earlier.
Without effort, that beautiful undoing,
the smooth newness.
Some of the religious say the five senses are thieves
so let’s say I am stolen
because my senses are all awake
and like the tree I can lose myself
layer after layer
all the way down to infinity
and that’s when the world has eyes and sees.
The whole world
loves the unlayered human.