A Beautiful Place for Mortal Beings

look at those trees, will you, look!
sun bursting into dazzling columns
and eucalyptus dripping its stringy
bark, drizzling its medicinal scent

dragonflies stretch stenciled wings
zephyr mambos with wild grasses
sunshine camps out on shoulders
the damp salty air curls our hair

we tumble into the sea’s embrace
to find that this is salvation and
the mountain expanse a cathedral
the ocean’s roar is its Te Deum

for mortal beings: a beautiful place,
voluptuous and wanton and willing
to be caressed, like Life, held close
never understanding the mysteries

our existence, the sea-held mountain,
we love them in our frailty, we grasp
these gifts until we can’t, until
letting go is just as it should be

Previously published in The Poet by Day