Almighty Church of Everlasting Power

 

Almighty Church of Everlasting Power

Almighty chorus for the dawn 

chickadees, hummingbirds and crows

send the moon to her next province

while a breeze whispers

wake up from your dreaming

—this is your morning. 

Church of Planet Earth 

waking for rolled oats and tea

and news from choirs

—birds, squirrels excited for reasons

I will never know, 

not being privy to gossip 

among hummingbirds in a garden 

I call mine because of a Deed

illegible to cedars

their branches crowned

with tender leaves, their 

Everlasting roots underground.

webbing the earth like a village map

roads over hills & valleys

spread quietly to feed earthworms, 

and five hundred species of insects

where thirty different indigenous languages

are spoken but not taught in provincial schools

because white settlers came in boats

and planes, believing they could survive

on green land and virgin forests

by crushing a universal mystery

into a system after centuries of war, 

famine and plagues

destroyed the homes they left behind.

Power is in your grief 

your conscience, the long poem

that was once the bible

before nuance was made redundant

—now that you have learned 

what power is not.