Desacralisation

If there's a god or spirit in each tree
and life's a long sacramental procession,
there's never need for action or progression
for we're surrounded by things we cannot see;
yet when we're in our own house's lee
the wind that's random shows us no succession,
instead there's progress and there's retrogression
and every stream finds no rest in the sea.
We live in time, with knowledge that it ends
for each of us, that we'll be no more there
than all time past. So we give our hopes a form
that comforts us, and so each mind pretends
that flesh turns to spirit in some upper air.