THE POET, GOD
In the beginning,
God wrote infinitely before a spaceless window
open to the void.
Perhaps disliking the work, God threw
all the poems out of the window
and they coalesced and swirled and erupted
into the universe, forming
atoms and the Chapbook of Elements,
then the Epic of the DNA,
The Collected Poems of Life
with award winning variety, words in all forms,
and finally us, with our elevated word-souls,
reconstructing all that fractured work
in our little imitations of infinity
and offering it back to God
as prayer or questions or proof.
God does not respond, does not read
the overwhelming volume of submissions.
God has angelic interns to do that.
God sits procrastinating over a new volume,
trying always to write the perfect poem
aware, like all poets,
that no such poem exists
and the closest you can come to it
is being it.
SUNFLOWER
Stamen stand to attention, parading
rippling hearts and radiating petals
a yellow hole that follows Fibonacci’s
hinting a hidden march into infinity.
Every year, so much effort as if this
flower plots to become the sun,
outlive all stars, defy death itself,
as Van Gogh knew. The coup fails
every time only to return. As long
as it returns, we have hope and art.
THE STAR OF THE FOREST
Scientists are still finding
a few names on the secret roll-call
of those close to erasure.
Tiny panicking plants
in remote corners of the tropics.
(Though not too remote for profit to find.)
Enter the Star of the Forest,
Didymoplexis stella-silvae.
One of sixteen new orchids found
from a once dense corner of Madagascar.
No leaves or chlorophyll,
a plant that has lost what makes a plant.
Star-like flowers that arise out of the dank humus
for one day of attraction
in the total darkness.
The pollinator a mystery, though ants
are suspected.
The lucky one.
3 of the 16 orchids are already extinct
due to logging and geranium oil
for aromatherapy in sweet smelling
middle class Western homes.
Matthew James Friday is a British born writer and teacher. He has had many poems published in US and international journals. His first chapbook, The Residents, was published by Finishing Line Press in summer 2024. http://matthewfriday.weebly.com.
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