The God of the Woods lives under the bark
of dead trees split by lightning,
his fingers all moss and antlers and rot,
his eyes two nailed moons
that beckon lost souls home
I heard him once,
when the river coughed up foam,
and deer stood motionless as gravestones
in the rain
He spoke through the throats of cicadas
and ivy train,
He said:
every hand is a root that chokes,
every church is a dog full of teeth
Then the woods bent inwards.
Branches snapped like twisted saints,
reaching for Heaven through mud
The God laughed.
The pines leaned close together,
their limbs knotted like drowning kings,
clawing at the stars through smoke
Still, the God laughed.
I myself, steady as man and strong as God
fell to my knees among the ferns
while the stars blinked out one by one
like cigarettes drowned in beer.
And somewhere deeper in the timber
an axe with my father's shoulders
kept singing
to something alive.
The God of the Woods opened his thousand-leafed mouth
and all the dark came spilling out.
May 20
May 20, 2026 at 3:09 PM UTC
The God of the Woods lives under the bark
of dead trees split by lightning,
his fingers all moss and antlers and rot,
his eyes two nailed moons
that beckon lost souls home
I heard him once,
when the river coughed up foam,
and deer stood motionless as gravestones
in the rain
He spoke through the throats of cicadas
and ivy train,
He said:
every hand is a root that chokes,
every church is a dog full of teeth
Then the woods bent inwards.
Branches snapped like twisted saints,
reaching for Heaven through mud
The God laughed.
The pines leaned close together,
their limbs knotted like drowning kings,
clawing at the stars through smoke
Still, the God laughed.
I myself, steady as man and strong as God
fell to my knees among the ferns
while the stars blinked out one by one
like cigarettes drowned in beer.
And somewhere deeper in the timber
an axe with my father's shoulders
kept singing
to something alive.
The God of the Woods opened his thousand-leafed mouth
and all the dark came spilling out.
