One
palm tree
 under a pessimistic moon
 droops over 
 a metamorphic ocean
 to ponder what's below.
Hunched posture
 it kills time...
 (sigh)
 Earlier in youth, 
 it once reached with palm leaves
open,
 groping for light.
 Now it's leaves are arthritic fingers;
 decrepit, knarled knotted, 
 like a crown of thorns.
 One palm tree,
    ...dying.
 A warm ocean growls like a calm
beast
 waiting under darkness
 where wave after wave
 of birth 
 and crucifixion
 comes and goes 
 like breath.
 You can hear chaos mounting 
 at the shore
 like an angry mob
 where sea and earth unite.
 Like the sound in a seashell,
 where Mother/Father voice
 beckons between moments... 
 I listen and follow it home,
    ...to where a wicked,
mangled tree 
 in a contortionist's dream 
 untwists itself miraclessly.     |