Under a cyclical canopy,
they have a quiet confidence
in leading their kind.

Whether sitting or standing,
they can tread the leaves for a lifetime,
in thrashing storms, midnight silence and droning dusk.
Their own voices muted.

We can’t hear their music,
or their oration,
or their soliloquies,
judging them dead, or worse,
having not lived.

Who knows their songs but them?
-and God-

To whom even the rocks cry out

amid the falling trees.
and new seedlings.

Tantum ergo.