Minutiae

Mosaics and
hanging gardens,
saturated islands floating
from Kyoto to the Taiga.
Mosses and lichens
offer luxuriant lodgings:
spongy velvet sofas,
fungal carpets.
In this damp forest
strange beasts thrive:
tardigrades and water piglets,
nymph mites and springtails
slip between the fronds.
On this decaying bark
liverworts and fire-dots,
rusts and flaky plaques;
milky galaxies merge,
expand and shrivel.
And summer rain continues,
trickling through the shadows.

I kneel to set the frame,
to see what’s there:
balanced on one wet knee:
I take a photograph.
It seems a kind of prayer.