The flower sings in scents of heady perfume to the breeze
to whom all fragrances are presented and well-known,
who caresses branches that reach the sky with ease,
but a hungry root separated itself and crawled off on its own
when the plant that sent if forth succumbed to an early freeze
and it became a green worm that new experience would be shown.

The worm gained mobility at the expense of its free earthy meal
and must search for what will satisfy desire, by touch and feel.

Sensation worms its way into the earth,
proliferates into all manner of beast,
new appetites causing bellyaching mirth,
the hunger to assimilate in a sacred feast
every progeny of evolutionary worth –
survival of the fittest, and the least.

The browser loves the grass, and the predator, the deer –
we learn life’s passionate essentials by way of elemental fear.

Instinct determines a liturgy of preyers,
herds the docile congregation like a con-man,
leaves gnawed, runic hymnals heaped in layers
where a song of praise was heard where red blood ran,
and in which scripture one can read the players
mutely testifying when the dawn of fear began.

The simple life in nature is a sentimental lie.
There are fields of terror where the gentle die.