I see a jungle in my dreams.
of treepie and of parakeet.
Where water-flowers are big as plates.
the mangoes pulpy, gold and sweet.

Here serpents shimmer in the grass.
and view their prey with gimlet eye.
While killer dragonflies swoop down.
like turquoise daggers from the sky.

And as the battle rages on.
the monkeys squawk, the wild cats growl.
And midst the orchids and the vines.
a panther goes upon the prowl.

Some Bible-reading people say.
the trees, the flowers the beasts, the brook.
Exploded into being like.
the pictures in a pop-up book.

And when they see a beast with jaw.
as fine-tuned as a workman's tool.
Chimeric-antlered stag, or bird.
with plume of pearl and eye of jewel.

They claim that all this beauty must.
be fruit of some celestial Mind
That, like a timepeice worked by cogs
their every facet was designed

But where is the All-Seeing Eye?
this jungle shows no sign of Him
Here many fish get swallowed whole
and deer dismantled limb from limb

And how can we believe that God
would let the aeons pass before
He made an insect or a flower
or wrought a single dinosaur?

Now when I dig into the ground
amidst the fossil and the bone
The creatures of the past are there
asleep within their world of stone

They tell a tale as precious as
a seam of gold inside a rock
For from their dark and dusty realms
the secrets of the Earth unlock