Living Tree Poetry

This poem by Ana Lisa de Jong and the accompanying photograph by Alexander Harding have moved me today, not Sunday, but the Sabbath in any day.

SUNDAY SONG
The bird song has broken down
the temple walls,
that the life might stream out.

Sweet bird on a humble branch
delicate and unobtrusive.
Against the great quiet
your morning voice
has caused something to shift.

The birth and death of stars
hardly compares
to your small form,
flitting through leaves
like a dancing shaft of light.

There is something in me
that forgoes the crowd,
that does not anywhere belong,
Though of the great body
I am formed.

But your presence on the branch,
shows me that the walls
are all down.
Broken by creations
propensity to expand.

Life that runs through every
living thing
rises in me like sap.
As like a great living tree
I stand in beams of grace