Immortality

Consider the blind tribes of the rain,
those artless factota scribing hips
and flanks in mineral formations.
And think of the careless kissing lips

of wind come nightly, until this tree
at timberline turns a dancer's twist
too slow for the human eye to see,
though in its stillness constantly kissed.

Stalagmites, stalactites grown like bones
to columns, a portico of cave,
proscenium arches waterfalls foam
over: no human hand will ever have

rendered their flutes and icy laces;
no one's eye has imagined them there.
The maker wears her many faces,
she is ocean and snow and the air,

and no one believes her product art.
After all, wind blows and water perks.
A man feels dominion in his heart,
though in the end he's just one of her works.

Copyright © 2005 Robert Wrigley All rights reserved
from Crying Sky
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission