Comprehension

If you peel back the moon, 
you’ll find the skin of the universe,
its matter and veins, the thick
pulse of its wonder
hitched to starlight 
and memory, dense 
with age and aging,
patterned after a snowflake, 
petals of a flower, white 
ribs of desert dunes.

If you cut into the yellow rind 
of a melon, you’ll taste the red-
iron earth, smell sweet 
water of a stream, tempered
by salt and sweat 
of an old farmer who leans 
to rest against his hoe 
and falls back to gaze 
at a cloud that appears
as a galloping horse.

If you feel the wind
in your eyelashes, regard 
the bitterness of a refugee 
child’s tears and still feel hope
in the necessity of your  breath, 
you can begin to comprehend 
the certainty of stones, 
the persistence of trees.

Photo Courtesy of Steve Double