Darwin's Tree

We sailed toward Darwin’s tree,
but the sea held me in a trance-
blue waves like a peacock’s feathers,
rolling in a wild, slow dance.
The wind called me to the island,
but all I heard was the sound
of fevered doves in the branches,
beating their wings all around.
How did they ever find each other?
How did they ever survive?
Did the worm come first to the prison,
or did the prison arrive?
“This tree is five hundred years old,”
they said, as the sunlight played.
Its leaves were mirrors of heaven,
but no flowers bloomed in its shade.
Then they broke the fruit wide open-
inside, a secret lay,
a tiny worm in the darkness,
carving its silent way.
How did they ever find each other?
How did they ever survive?
Did the worm come first to the prison,
or did the prison arrive?
I held the fruit to my eye-
through the smallest crack of red,
light burst into a hundred colors,
a kaleidoscope in my head.
And there I saw the Firework Master,
silent, distant, cruel and bright,
who builds the stars, the worms, the cosmos,
and burns it all in fading light.
How many years in the darkness,
before the tunnels were made?
Did the worm carve out its own path,
or was the path already laid?
Did a thousand tiny soldiers
march to the trees at dawn,
each one slipping into place,
as if they’d always belonged?
How did they ever find each other?
How did they ever survive?
Did the worm come first to the prison,
or did the prison arrive?
Maybe no plan, no hand, no reason,
only a world that twists and sways,
but through the smallest crack of crimson,
the light still finds a way.