Sonnet #42

I don't believe a person can be born again

The trees can. Take a clipping, dip in hormone

Place in soil, soon the roots descend

The leaves push through, the tree, reborn,

Is ready to rise above the fields anew

Anywhere new. Underground the roots

Recognize themself, mine together through

each other, rise one soul, two shoots

You cannot yet take fingers of flesh

Place them in a womb, expect new life

No false watery grave, no ceremonial mesh

No battlefield or epiphanic strife

We remain our old selves, harder, scarred;

With some survival, maybe riper for the churchyard