The forest is alive today

and quick with wild devotion.

Bees hum, drunk on puffs

of pollen, censer-swung

from meadowsweet

and Queen Anne’s lace.

Ferns stir themselves

to nod and bow; they sail

a summer breeze. Open-handed

to the sun, each pair of leaves

is a single prayer in a reef

of fractal-patterned green.

Damselflies flash and dart,

a fever of electric grace.

In the shade a foal gazes,

still as any seer;

her flanks are polished silver,

her tail an aspergillum.    

The body of a world

at worship cries out

to be seen. The beech leaves

whisper in a psalm

to everything that flickers,

foams and gleams.