On the Holy

Where lies the holy in the modern world?
It lies in Blake’s world in a grain of sand –
It lies, and lies like the truth, in patterns
Like self-organized rings of rocks barren
Arctic fields create. It lies in the branch
Of every tree and species, leafing out
From the known into the unknown. It lies
In every song, painting and rhythmic verse.
We have looked at every leaf and petal,
At the bark and at the wood, every cell
And strand of DNA is now known –
And we have forgotten that all of this
Was once a tree that gave us shade and filled
The air with delicate sweetness and held
The grains of sand against its roots to hold
The ground in place, even as that ground moves
And changes in tiny ways we refuse
To see. In this we can see the holy.
This is where it lies, now and forever,
On the edge of order and wild chaos,
Where the infinite holds in the finite,
Where we, ourselves holy, have always lived.