The seed was made for cold,
patient in its sleep
below the soil-bound leaves.
Microscopic hunger
blackens, feeding spring
with clean decay.
In rich layers of space
is this blue earth-bubble,
seed among the stars.
Our busy action churns
bacterial in scale
for some work yet to sprout.
What germ is sleeping here,
what embryonic tree,
its branches all imagined,
its leaves spread to the possible,
its fruit beyond our mouths
and reaching fingers?
Saint Tantalus teach us
your stretch,
your fickleness.
Your prison is a husk,
your lust the force
inside the Holy Seed.