Trees
Trees march headlong
up the spiny mountain ridge,
a fairy court in finery green,
thickening roots burrowing through
the thick mat of shedding leaves,
dropped branches,
the tiny soft heads of the newly born.
High in the mountains trees cast
long shadows across unintentional clearings
like specters awaiting release,
plowing rick dark earth with long knobby toes,
wizened arms entangling sky.
At night they dance a fairy waltz;
the shuffle slap of roots and earth,
crackle slash of limbs and air,
dancing to songs forgotten
in the instant of their own heartbeats.
In the clearing
the elder oak stands,
only a trunk,
hollowed by wind and rain and time,
sitting in a thick layer
of his own decaying flesh.
The other trees will not come
into the clearing.
Arthritic roots too fragile to carry
the dance,
phantom limbs like clouds,
thin against the setting sun.
As night after night
the fairies bury their dead
in the rich warm debris
of his soul.
A Writer's Life 