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POETRY | PROSE POEM
Forest Hymn
What persists
The forest is a hymn.
It speaks of connections:
the scent of damp leaves drifting across tangled roots.
Trees have no word for God.
They feel his presence in the bright trill of the wren,
the patter of the rain carrying messages from the sky,
and the bugle of the elk,
echoing across the blanket of ferns and wildflowers.
The mossy stream seeps like arteries around roots,
babbling a psalm.
We walk through their timeless words.
The orange-winged butterfly
and the silk of the milkweed are one.
The snake that glides like black ice
and the mouse hiding in his hole are one.
The bear and the salmon that flash upstream to spawn are one.
The wind whispers through quivering leaves…
hushing our questions.
We rest in these moments of dappled light
leaking through branches,
and shadows that embrace
the hidden world beneath snow and silt.
