We Are All God’s Poems

First published in International Tanka (Japan) #10, November 2021, page 5. Originally written in May of 2021.

we are all God’s poems—

the hermit crab

that scurries away

from the anemone

closing at my touch

sunlit wildflowers—

we are all God’s poems

in the meadow

stretching to the glacier

on the mountaintop

sand in the lee

of a fallen gazelle—

we are all God’s poems

in the last light

of the desert sunset

wheat waving

under storm clouds

as the harvester passes by—

we are all God’s poems,

even prairie deer mice

Douglas fir

and towering pines

swaying over us

on our last summer hike—

we are all God’s poems