“But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.” (Job 12:7-8)
Morning Choral…
Busy squirrel freezes.
Bramble, bracken, fern
cock light-filled ear.
Broken pine stops
decomposing.
Green-haired rocks resign
volcanic pasts.
Oak tree turns dandelion clock,
ready to explode with pleasure:
arthritic limbs revivified –
as morning choral tumbles
through the verdant prism,
silencing all, but the warblers.
Steeped in this liquid sound,
reverent attempts to capture
are as futile as the sapling’s urge
to heal gnarled neighbours.
All pay homage
in the lime cathedral,
bask in the heavenly cacophony,
as redstart, thrush and wren
add their psalms.
Heidi Stephenson
.