Landscape of Heaven

Once mustard is sown, it is scarcely possible to be free of it;
for the seed germinates at once when it falls.
                                                       —from Natural History

And he said, whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God?
                                                                      —Mark 4:30

Like coarse flame consuming the garden
they sway their braided tongues—
firece, innumerable. Weeds, you say,

meaning those tattered stalks
that ravage the foxglove and columbine.
Yet imagine a heaven of weeds:

mustard whelming the extravagant lilies
and marigolds, spending field after field in its strict
profusion, like the necessary violence of God.

Perhaps it's true that love of the world
is another way to enter paradise,
that force and beauty are equal under heaven.

But here, in the landscape of weeds, amid the wrestle
of stem and root, dying is the wages
of mercy. And in the kingdom they compose

all things—bramble and bindweed,
the flax's sun-scorched petals—
are defined by the light that touches them.

Copyright © 2002 Morri Creech All rights reserved
from Paper Cathedrals
The Kent State University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission