Holy Trees Of Faith

Holy Trees Of Faith
© Surazeus
2025 04 22

The striped lizard of arrogance, that crawls 
mewing across the eyeball of the sky, 
counts all the people wandering alone 
amid the ruins of their fantasies 
who sing the anguish of their broken hearts 
all together in harmony of hope. 

The old man sitting on porch of his home 
on the cabbage farm by the country road 
considers why the lizard knows the name 
of every poet wandering alone 
in ancient cemetery of dead gods 
who come out as zombies every full moon. 

Chewing on the stalk of wheat in his teeth, 
the old man wearing the tattered felt hat 
ponders what folksy proverbs he could share 
on his next radio show on Sunday night 
that might inspire working people to hold 
fast to faith that slithers away as sand. 

The people wandering in the wilderness 
who look for signs along the wheel-worn road 
search for the dandelion of the sun 
which might reveal the hour the ship comes in 
so they can follow chimes of freedom ringing 
across the broad prairies of wind-blown grass. 

So when the children of the country town 
run down the dirt road in the afternoon 
to pick wild plums from holy trees of faith 
with joyful exuberance of the young, 
the old man brings them baskets with a grin 
as finches flit between the white-laced trees. 

The way the world of hills and valleys burst 
with bright explosions of slow-motion blooms 
after rain drenches farms and towns at dawn 
revives his sense of skeptical respect 
as children jump around with jubilance 
with muddy feet that curl roots into Earth. 

Thus we are rooted to this ancient land 
where we are born from hearts of migrant souls 
because we eat the light of singing trees 
that transform mud of this land into fruit 
which molds our bodies from its timeless dreams 
and welcomes us with comfort in its graves. 

Yet flock of starlings shrieking in the sky 
remind the old man with hair white as snow 
that he can see eternity of truth 
when he gazes in the rainwater pool 
which reflects the face his ancestors wore 
before they became fruit the Earth consumes.