Photosynthesis

We pull the sun in,
wrap our bodies in the day
wake the world with music;
we store the light
for water, and for night,
painting summer on the breeze,
leaving ashes on the beach.
We pull the sky down
like peaches from the trees,
mapping out asylums
on the ground
and then, like xylem,
like a violin,
with our lips we sing,
falling leaves like stars
flaming from the skin,
from our fingertips
on wood and string,
the arborescent growth
of pitch and bark, both
branching up to crown
opposing melodies of wind,
to pipe the evening down.
But still the fissures
in the planet spew
and rhyme, photons pulse,
drown the music in the hymns,
align the spirals
of our fragile limbs
with the rush of oceans,
to surround the choirs
and the victims
with our rising human fires.

February 11th, 2019, Kawela