The Grove

Joseph enters. A beetle
weaves a shock of orange
through early decay. Dogwood
and wild rose rouse
under beech and elm.
 
A collective sigh
waves the canopy above,
dilating the distant blue.
 
From his lips
—a cry—
 
Mother, Her thousand ears,
Her thousand eyes, Her fragrance
suffusing, opens the heavens
upon Her son—pillar descending—
 
held to Her chest, flat on his back
in the seat of the Throne, in
 
Her thousand branches adorning the long climb
into the milky stars—legs gripping
the murky underworld—
 
hosts and hosts and hosts and hosts.

Kathryn Knight Sonntag is the Wayfare Poetry Editor and the author of The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother (Faith Matters Publishing, 2022) and The Tree at the Center (BCC Press, 2019).