for Joy Harjo

We are less than a sliver.

Our bilge keel chipped,
we travel back in time,
bend to the forest, curtsey to the trees.

In the forest we do not lose identity.
We see past we see future.
We open our mouths.

Are we mad? Are we
on the eve of the end?
Is this the reading of
Revelations?

Or are we in prayer?

Singing to forest deities, to water sprites
to the fire gods honouring terra celestial.

We come from darkness—
Ephesians says it all
and Euripides before.
Into the world of light we are flung
courtesy of the vast dark hole.

If we are lucky—
a tiny toehold