Dominion
We name the birds and think those are their names
but our throats are helpless when calling flights pass over
and we can’t taste the earth that comes up with the worm in a robin’s beak
nor in the worst moments of our lives can we approach the way an owl sobs.
We analyze the sky using charts one phenomenon at a time
yet when light pierces the clouds like our visions of God we turn into
open mouths and when that light enters us no matter how much
we want to keep it because we do not have the tools we can never.
We wade through undergrowth whose leaves and sticks are our words for them
but the nodules and stitchings on our ankles will always know more about plants
than we do and we have no idea what to call the way trees dwarf us nor when
we hold them how to interpret the patterns their barks leave on our cheeks.
We have stories but we cannot parse them so when we step on a seedling struggling
through a crack we never think of Cain and Abel nor does the way water
cascades towards us from high and ancient rock bring Rapunzel to mind
nor when we look at the stars do we remember As it was in the beginning.
When will we understand that all our classifications are only attempted dust?
That nothing pinned to a card is true? That sight and hearing
and taste and our hearts and our brains and the tips of our fingers
are like yellow butterflies? Reach for them and they are gone.