Redwoods, sequoia sempervirens, steeple-tall,
where we walked, awed to silence, through a past
present to us in the trees, centuries old,
the soft rain’s sibilance holding all the woods
in an embrace of stillness; down the rich aisles
of pillared redwoods that soared, reaching high
as old God’s leaning, we found ourselves
insignificant, temporal beings, taken by the impulse
to pray; till we saw the owl, squat on a branch,
watchful, Methuselah, barred owl, old hinge-head,
swivel-face and rain-owl, bemused at us who mooched
by below, uncertain, turning to our cellphones
for assurance, our cars waiting in the carpark
urgent for the forecourts, the switchbacks, the freeways;
you could hear them, the redwoods, in the mists
gossiping about the restlessness of humankind,
who, for the moment, struggle with our illnesses,
with the loveliness of the roe-deer skittering
across our path, elegant and fearful, and the buck
quick in his balletic leap into the ferns till we know
we have dipped our fingers in a sacred font
and emerge, fortified by sacrament, blessed again in spirit
for our ongoing struggle with the flesh.

      for Declan Deane  /  by John F. Deane