The Vast Unknown Sea of Trees (sonnet)

You know, sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.

Thus sang Bob Dylan way back in his bible years.

I was homeless, living in a tent, without fears,

And the world seemed to me a beautiful disease.

The trees went from green to fractured colors to white.

I could hear the oboe parts of a symphony

I'd been working on, modeled after Tchaikovsky,

And a fire was crackling in the early evening light.

Im here now and straight ahead is a sea of trees,

Pacific and still, suspiring, jacaranda

In full bloom, blue bees bobbing, on my veranda,

Out back, way down under in the Antipodes.

Soon I'll be gone, faded into the mystery

That separates -- joins memory with history.