Background Radiation on the Arboretum Trail

“God created everything, including science. One of God’s other names is Big Bang.

Sometimes, when she prayed, she said ‘Dear Big Bang,’ and she was half certain that
God enjoyed the inside joke. Nobody was allowed to be fully certain about God.”
-Sherman Alexie, “Clean, Cleaner, Cleanest”

Dear Big Bang, it seems
Even Upanishads and
Torah can’t describe

The cosmic reasons
Why a backlit leaf, conjoined
With a cold mountain

Creek’s gurgling choir,
Emits a somewhat certain
Hint of the divine.

– Photograph and Poem by Gene Hyde

Gene Hyde lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina, where he occasionally takes pictures and writes things down. His ekphrastic poetry has appeared in Valley Voices, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Goose: A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture, and The Bark.