A Song of Ascent from the South

Bulbous and sodden, slight congregations
of rugged brown roots ornament the base
of the chapel of all the old saints.
See how one exact root inlays up
along sandstone (borrowed and filed),
it gnarls its way there into knots,
this leaf sags from the vine,
that shoot tendrilling off into entropy,
awaiting more time.  I imagine these vines
mirrored deep underground, growing blind
through a darkening sea of original shadows,
instinctively spiraling inward, returning
to tap the ripe core of existence where green gulls
swim singing thick resonant anthems to God
in a language without any words.
These vines are not rooted in the freshly
strewn bones of Polk or of Robert E. Lee.
They bow down and rise up to I Am That I Am,
God and Creator of all; beyond the chapel's
cold stone wall, beyond the old south,
beyond anything imagined or named.

 

wake