The Joshua Tree & The Striking of Time

Deep within a forest of stars
Lies an earth with luscious soil,
ruddy as sunrise

Below the roots of Jesse's fig-ceder stump
Layers of minerals and bacterium whisper
They whisper to the buried bones of an ox and a ram, whose horn lies half buried

They whisper to ironic tent pegs
To the forgotten axe heads
And the hieroglyphic stylus
They whisper to the shepherds crook
They whisper to the rotting plough

Rocks cry out
Even the standing stones,
the one laid down,
and the little pebble

A cluster of mushrooms expand,
under the shade of one

And a standing stone falls,
Spliting the side of David's shoot

Into that wound a seed is sown and sprouts
It blossoms into an olive-almond tree,
And it grows so beautifully,
until the weight of an almond branch bends,
gets too heavy, snaps,

Smashing into the soft mushrooms,
it is left lowing upon the ground
Threadbare connection keeps it alive,
though sickly

And a serpent vine creeps into that branch,
begins to strangle it

Then lightening strikes the olive tree
And a new shoot comes up,
from its dead part

From the almond branch new life comes
And firy flowers burst out for a short while,
when that earlier vine reaches its branches too,
and does its work

The new shoot refuses to bear olives
But a bird comes to nest there
as the rapid growth tries to push the true olive branch down
Yet the olive branch still grows up strong,
until its dryness causes it to split

Slowly all become fruitless
The noxious vine is choking most of this scene

A gush of wind
fills the rams horn
From these fallen branches emerge white ants
But lho! They now aren't ants
but are sheep

The earth rumbles and shakes
The shepherds crook slitheres out
That Nehushtan of old
Spitting a fire upon that tree,
it returns to the man who emerges
He emerges from that fallen stone,
gathers and binds the sheep

Agni blazes strong and does her work

And the axe, and the bull and the plough...
Arising back to life,
respond to the prayers of the sheep
and begin to clear away the dross

And all is well