Reformation is Never Denied
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Life works in the living and the dead. We are all manifestations
of light, and energy beams from my leaves and perfumed soul.
With all my ingenuities there are still manifold forms
of the unexpressed mind. Without a cloud in the sky
I am still so diligent in how I pray, and I pick gravel
from my tires with my keys before I drive. I fix my ideas
on stars, ignoring direct contact with the devas in the trees.

Once I heard that plants in a darkened room tremble
when read ghost stories. And walking through Bermuda
grass somehow reminds me all bodies are water carriers.
My changeableness, my stubbornness, my gospel fables,
the little branchlets in my body somehow holy. And I can’t help
but admire Japanese beetles with their copper-sheened
wing covers and forest green heads.

I don’t know where these words are going or if they mean anything.
What I do know is I can’t stop casting my thoughts, like
propellers from maple trees. William Daut said: “Reformation
is never denied.” And so, I’ll keep going—lifting rain-bent daffodils,
and feeding blackberries to chipmunks on my back porch
until my cataloging mind becomes still as a windless pond.