Cosmic Treetop Cartography

Cosmic Treetop Cartography

by Mary K O’Melveny
Kingston, NY

I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down
…Joy Harjo “Speaking Tree”

So far, the James Webb Space Telescope has found no trees.
Quasars, yes. Black holes. Long dead stars bathed in luminosities.
Supernovas branched with rainbow gasses, drizzled in diamond
dust. We track these futuristic excursions into time and
space with awe. One finds forests of fury and flame advancing
across raw ridges of cosmic landscapes as though dancing,
or shape-shifting thickets filled with supernova orchards. Skies
unfold in cloud chapparals. Shadowed spheres, moons, orbs surprise
us. Nebula nurseries emerge. Earthlike planets spin. Each trove
of images open before us like wisps of filtered light in a grove
of birch, maple or a cottonwood bosque. How long before
some rover’s lens discovers root, bud, seedling, even spore?
Imagine tree ring libraries from a billion light years past –
seeding skies with hope that earthly forests here might last.