Men are all wrong—Beauty and Nature
are not gods; rather, they are God’s,
signposts leading men to their Maker
and to their place within His creation

The poets are only half right to say
that the woods are worship spaces—
For God Himself says that men
are His temples, His dwelling places

Though they begin charred and dark,
from ashes spring shoots of green,
life revived; renewed like a forest
after a consuming, cleansing fire

Spirit inhaled into ash-laced lungs,
inspired sanctuaries made holy by
the breath whispered into them from
mouth that fashioned woods from words

It is the theologians who know the truth,
that men are God’s home, holding within them
His life-breath—the rubble-scarred redeemed,
reclaimed to life, growing into palace-pillars.

Photo credit: By Daniels, Gene, photographer, Photographer (NARA record: 8463941) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons