The Rain Garden

People talk about nature
Using holy language
And say that spirits exist
In oak trees and oceans

I see the reason for this
But nature would not
For what is an oak tree
If not the ocean?

And what is a language
If not a million blades of grass
In the boundless expanse
Of our shared valley

So you can listen to rain
And ask for absolution
But the lake in the sky
Will never reply

For we are not guilty
Only lost in ourselves
Like the mountain and the river
We are the cause and the effect