Simon MacCulloch

Jungled

Deep green in leaf and red in tooth and claw
The jungle seethes with Nature in the raw
With long strange evolutionary histories
A jewelled myriad of living mysteries.

If ever Adam ventured to this region
He named its creatures not, for they are legion
No Tree of Knowledge here to be forbidden
But countless Trees of Life, their serpents hidden.

In place of Eden’s orderly selection
This rampant growth creates a rich confection
Of dying, living, eating, eaten tissue
By which an alien bestiary finds issue.

So let’s abandon names and words and thought
And dwell here like the struggling insect caught
On lizard’s tongue, as living as at birth
As dead as if already turned to earth.

Simon MacCulloch lives in London and is a regular contributor to Reach Poetry, The Dawntreader and Sarasvati.