All the Trees of the Field

(Betasso Preserve)

The mountains and the hills
RainrainShall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field
RainrainShall clap their hands.
Rainrianrianrainrainrainrainrain– Isaiah 55:12

Wings sweep the vista and perch
Rainrainon the evergreen. Somewhere

a bird of prayer, not easily
Rainrainspotted, owls its morning lauds

in full croon, as white mountain sage
Rainrainopens itself to us, an incense carpet,

saying burn with me, our bodies
Rainrainoffered up into a brass censer.

*

On the loop ascending the templed
mesa you whisper the poem
I’ve never shared for its god-
thirst. I fail to define beauty
in the train car café as the smoke
of us swans out its neck
in invitation to climb it into a view
of all things seeded and seeding
Rainrainrainrainrianrainrainrbelow.

*

Have you ever seen an endangered
Rainrainplant? you ask. Yes, I have been vague

in the winter, a ghost of myself
Rainrainwandering, a music above the junipers.

*

Can you hear it again,
the unseen singer’s language vining
into fruiting body—?

I know this cry, but not my own
tendril body moved into song.

*

God is all who grow, God is all
who sing, God is all—

*

Once, I wanted to drink in beauty,
I wanted to glimpse that raptor.
I wanted to rapture
what stretches before me, inside:

the vista, the mountain,
the evergreen, your hat askew,
the smoldering sage. I wanted
wildflowers to bloom

their danger-fires, to open their lips,
raise their tongues
in praise, inside me; I still want
the Rockies to push up

Rainraincrag and cliff, my body
Rainrainmeeting another burning body.

*

Chance’s pink morning drinks us,
Rainrainholding open the heart’s door to bloom

and blossom. Can you hear it—
Rainrainthat echo from me to you?

From some unknown spruce,
Rainrainthe great horned owl opines.

—for Sam Skold