Nature's Protege

I see yellow dust flicker into the sky when you speak

Like gold flakes from your lips, the touch of King Midas on your words

Watched you carve waterfalls from the palms of your hands and heard you invite the Nile to take note

Grew envious of the angels bathing in your creation

Their wings dripping with your artistry, their mascara smeared with your sweat

I believed you could make the world in eight days, just because you’re too Christian to upstage God

But seeing as you were created in his likeness, Michelangelo illustrated the greatness of your palms on the concrete clouds of the Sistine chapel

And so your majesty is eternally laced in the cracks where people’s prayers creep into on their journey to heaven

I might have recognized your brilliance sooner had impostors not shackled my faith like milk cartons to light posts where dreams only lasted as long as aggressive three pointers

Swoosh

Nothing but net

And the rebound is always calculated and necessary

Bouncing back from being swallowed whole

I watch you and see the glory of heaven tattooed on your chest

The portrait of saints sculpted from the very dust of your ribs

Innocent children playing tic tac toe on the blocks of your rearranged spine

Lord

I can see our language reflect through the smoke of your skin

You are a craved piece of perfection

Idle to the threats of successors and indifferent to whatever the history books will say about you later

I know you now and you are love

Like syrup from the barks of maple trees

and honey from bees with only one life to live

You tug at my clothes like the wind

Carrying me into the vision of the elements

Appreciating my own participation in the storyline of nature

You breathed air into me and watched my chest rise

Birth is divine

But living is entirely human