To Be a Tree

It may well be, if we but knew it, that this dark realm is here to shape

Countless avenues for spirits to help them make their Great Escape.  

Who is to say that grasses, trees, that animals and plants are waste,   

That only humans hold the keys and will be raised, allowed to taste, 

Experience the real salvation? We can’t. We only ever

Know other beings’ emanation, signs, and sights. Endeavor

Although we might to get a view from the inside, we fail, we can’t,

Although a smile, the other’s sighs, sometimes produce the small, scant

Hint that our life is also in  their eyes. On walks betimes I feel

That trees and I communicate, indeed that rustling leaves conceal

The meanings they articulate to one another too. There is no waste.

The dog has feelings, thoughts, and dreams. Matter, spirit are so interlaced

In dogs we can’t make out the seams where in them souls from bodies part.

The inwardness of flowers, in trees the deep emotions in their hearts?

That knowledge isn’t ours. Is there a gulf here? Or just degrees?

Sometimes for an hour’s spell on walks I ponder such odd mysteries.