A light rain hangs
in the black wet woods,
inverts the January hill
ten thousand times
in each jeweled tree,
tapping on the leafmat
as it falls in shifting air.
We must love the subtle
to preserve the world,
earth's fate in greedy hands,
profiteers in their removes
high in golden towers.
Who among them
spends an hour
silent in cold rain
watching ferns emerge
as riddled snow recedes,
humbled by the order
of the cashless world?
We must bank
the profit to the soul
the earth provides
which has sustained us
all our lives
for fifty thousand years,*
raising songs
against the odds
for fifty thousand more.
* — anthropologic estimate on the appearance of language and symbolic culture.
