Skunk Cabbage

Nothing impermanent
can be right or wrong.
Perceptions are never incorrect
when you let them evaporate
in the grace of the Unknown.
Words like yours and mine,
better and worse -
what do they mean?
Let them be moths teased
and sizzled by a flame.
Remember that the skunk cabbage
is also called a swamp lantern.
Feel your way
through the wetlands,
every dogwood blossom, greening stone
and wand of devil's claw
a prick and flutter in your diaphragm
as of some wind-wild moon-silk
rooting down in your body.
Each cloud on the hoary mountain
a pulse in your brow,
every vigilant elk in the meadow
munching hay
an ancient pang of recognition
in your belly.
Do you miss that musk-mad scent?
Why not dissolve this world of things
into the dendrites and lymph nodes
of your physiology?
Taste your way
through the forest after dark.
Your neurons are the only pathways
in heaven or earth.
And if, in the morning, you must
have some daily news, consider this:
Billions of points of view
float like dust motes
in a boundless golden ray
that leads to the sun,
the thingless effulgence
reflected in each raindrop,
every tear.
From the soft spot in your crown
a silver thread is tethered
to a distant star.
Why not be silent
and ravel your mind back
to where it came from?
Your story needs no telling, friend,
if it's the story of love.
There is no other story.
Let the past tense vanish into fire.
Were you the dust or the sunbeam?
Find the breath of wonder
we all breathe,
many moist warm lips on the verge
of a single kiss.

Photo from Keeping It Green Nursery