VI.
The Forest

The trees stand apart from each other,
afraid to come too close,
trunks worn smooth by the streams of wolves coursing past them
and the scratching deer.

Smooth columns: this is a cathedral of trees,
a place of arches and infinite doorways
formed by branches curving silently into the air.

Stained stars hang from the vaulted boughs:
flowers of wax,
candles burning with inner light,
exuding scents and marble incense.

A place of worship where hapless trees are choked
with glacial trailing patience
until the massed weight of coils makes arches creak
in the spring rains, when elephants bellow.

Then the bough breaks
and the sound of one tree falling
reverberates like bells and bells and belltowers.

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Some comfort lies in knowing
A tree’s inner core gilds a human wall,
And no one pays it mind —

I stared into her faded eyes, while willing
Into being a look not a reflection
Of my own. Her bones have been
Unlearning youth for years,
And dry rot clenches whispery hands
Around her veins. She feels oblivion,
Perhaps, and rooted fears to die —

And worse, the fear of being furnishing
For a mourner’s heart, a comfortable
Seat for sadness on display, a grief
Unlearned, replaced, reborn, beveled
By the familiar gaze of children wishing
For knowledge, continuation, and belief.

I pay her mind, in hopes that one will do
The same for me — ring me, round me, learn
And ground me, make me theirs, and never burn
The grains that build me, where they gild me
through and through.

It’s not tick tock. More like a
Tack chalk tick chalk take chalk talk chalk,
A song without sibilants whinging its way
Around the vowels, never settling, circling back.

As you sleep it falls into white noise,
Just chalk chock shock sock until every moment
Blurs its way into the melting dream.
Marking moments that move sideways,

Perpendicular to seeing, the sibilants easing
Their way into the susurration of sleep.
Each six degrees of movement, each sharp tick
The peak signal in a rush of static.

What is a clock? A simplistic rhythm, like chalk itself,
Nothing more than a rubbing on the face of time.