Under a temple of sequoia,
I do not fear your ravenous wild
which lives in everything—
flowering desire.

What drives my folly
drips longingly with mad nectar,
finds your mystery alive in my eyes,
mystery coloured in vibrant azalea.

There is no forest, just
deciduous portals to other worlds.

Beneath an outgrowing meadow
of detritus, decay has a lurid scent
of pine that lingers; And your roots

guide my descent into the darkest deep,
a thousand years into the Holocene.

Show me
how to carry this endless dream.
Make me remember where
I am and will always be:

in raindrops streaming
to the understory,

in hollowed trees pulsing rivers
of sun in between,

in conifer transpiring seeds
from branch to leaf,

in earthworms relishing
the sweetness of skin,

in the enduring vision of you
that exists in the marrows
of me.

Maybe in time
touched by waterfalls of memory,
I will return to your world again—
cloaked in dirt and evergreen.