to you: dendrophilous, beau of wildwood,
packed in bark, tied in moss, marginal: peripheral,
rest,
embryonic, flowering, this is
your
almost home, almost home. unlearn your
name,
perch your knees drawn inward, the shrub
beneath
does not know your name and this is the offering: to be unlanguaged.
what
is photophilia? a sown, shaking sun that does not emblazon so much as soften the bounds. it
grows
where flesh ends and rune begins, silvatic.
where
do you belong? to nature’s forbearance.
somewhere between the woods, between
roots,
which is to say somewhere exactly human.
wait,
see how children watch from their distance? it’s topophilia. trenchant.
below.
what place do you love when loving feels like lessening? lie down. the fork of the tree opens.
nothing
chthonophilous: earth-loving, yes, but more. returning to what the earth already was, taphophilia, it all
keeps
rotting. it means giving back. your locks sprawl forth
into roots. you are dissolving,
you
are conjugating. stigmatophilia: blemish the trunk, be blemished by moss, by the long torpor of bark, phytophilous.
here.
you were always here, returning in the oldest tense: conjugating,
let
go through the clasp of chlorophyll, let
go
of what grows from what was stomped into ground.
all these words for love (for you), all these ways to say the question
survives the questioner, that you are in the petals of something that has not bloomed yet, in symphily:
the soil,
the forest, the flowers, the sky, they all
already
live near each other. your cries have reached no animal. only nature
knows.
the tree does not mourn what falls into it.
neither, finally, will
you.
Apr 26
Apr 26, 2026 at 3:15 AM UTC
to you: dendrophilous, beau of wildwood,
packed in bark, tied in moss, marginal: peripheral,
rest,
embryonic, flowering, this is
your
almost home, almost home. unlearn your
name,
perch your knees drawn inward, the shrub
beneath
does not know your name and this is the offering: to be unlanguaged.
what
is photophilia? a sown, shaking sun that does not emblazon so much as soften the bounds. it
grows
where flesh ends and rune begins, silvatic.
where
do you belong? to nature’s forbearance.
somewhere between the woods, between
roots,
which is to say somewhere exactly human.
wait,
see how children watch from their distance? it’s topophilia. trenchant.
below.
what place do you love when loving feels like lessening? lie down. the fork of the tree opens.
nothing
chthonophilous: earth-loving, yes, but more. returning to what the earth already was, taphophilia, it all
keeps
rotting. it means giving back. your locks sprawl forth
into roots. you are dissolving,
you
are conjugating. stigmatophilia: blemish the trunk, be blemished by moss, by the long torpor of bark, phytophilous.
here.
you were always here, returning in the oldest tense: conjugating,
let
go through the clasp of chlorophyll, let
go
of what grows from what was stomped into ground.
all these words for love (for you), all these ways to say the question
survives the questioner, that you are in the petals of something that has not bloomed yet, in symphily:
the soil,
the forest, the flowers, the sky, they all
already
live near each other. your cries have reached no animal. only nature
knows.
the tree does not mourn what falls into it.
neither, finally, will
you.
all rises vertically and falls back to the ground