The Stigma of Nature

gleams a sea of blue space

rimmed with gold.

It's the sky,

the still waters of doves and eagles.

But often, when the gold is marred

by the dust of an angry cloud,

and the still waters are rent by a rage,

the sky becomes

the birth mother of destruction.

For all the hostile forces of nature

meet to war there.

Beneath the trees

little flowers grow

by rotting stumps and logs.

In the fall the trees

share their ginger with the ground,

but venomous snakes,

also the color of ginger,

live among the leaves.

In a tree

a bird carefully weaves a hollow home

for her progeny.

She will nurture her eggs

to be the mirror image of herself and her mate,

until her glorious children take wing.

But soon the Earth will tilt the other way,

And her empty home will turn a frosty winter gray.

Finally

between the trees

there stand a man,

as bright as the corona of the morning,

with flowers in his hand.

But deep,

in the darker soils of his inner earth,

there grows a thistle.

In richer soils, he nurtures sin.