From up there I could see the tree die off
that should renew, and yet when the message
came from roots to canopy
it remained dry and lifeless; the distant
smog of the isolated city reaching there
through which all cities
small or large, minor or influential,
speak. A fox ran in daylight, and eagle
tore at the fabric of a paraglider, a snake
bit at the ankles of the launching pilot.
The trinity of the damned, at respective
points of the globe, smiled as holy, though apostate,
sap soaked through the ground like tears,
holy river running beneath, simultaneously
not forsaking those who make false
judgement on the advertising standards commission,
or the promoters of guns and poisons, who
would make the tonnage increase
and gain comfort in war-time profiteering,
war they made against an enemy whom they financed
with kickbacks, a market for their golden grain.
And now commencing psalmody
with weather-stained citations, ‘Deus,
venerunt gentes’…, as transporting
as the westerly ruffling field mice
hopping between compassionate herbage,
eyes set as liquid hemispheres
drawing the violent to their energy,
contra-voce, ‘Modicum, et non videbitis me;
et iterum…modicum, et vos videbitis me’…
the smallest muttering, one-speak for all,
the oldest York gum now golden-limbed entirely
with loss of bark, the cooling season.
And so, too lazy to collect and store double gee
and caltrop burrs for later burning, they are scraped
from soles, levered away by set-square edges
of laterites, to fall in chaos that will sprout
as fractals—always fractals—ensure their pilgrimage
of blossoming and piercing, assured of salvation,
their comparative eternity.