Token Gestures
Winding through woodland, holy-men chant lost language,
sound unspooling
with the fluidity of lifelong preparation.
They say the trees were people once,
before the fall.
A novice will sleep beneath blood red canopies
for three summer nights,
a trial for his heritage.
Leaves whisper without wind
to the boys resting on wound-warm bark
and moonlit soil.
Only the relics of our forebears can give them absolution
from gene-warped flesh.
We give lifetimes to the study of their ciphers, a sequence
built from the repetition
of A-T-C-G,
memorised
in the hope of insight.
Winding through woodland, holy-men chant lost language,
sound unspooling
with the fluidity of lifelong preparation.
They say the trees were people once,
before the fall.
A novice will sleep beneath blood red canopies
for three summer nights,
a trial for his heritage.
Leaves whisper without wind
to the boys resting on wound-warm bark
and moonlit soil.
Only the relics of our forebears can give them absolution
from gene-warped flesh.
We give lifetimes to the study of their ciphers, a sequence
built from the repetition
of A-T-C-G,
memorised
in the hope of insight.
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