I am the sprout and the sunlight
the seed and the open sky.
Weaving the soft green world through
the pulse of a boy made of everything,
who believes the forest is his skin.
The canopy’s eyes closed against the sun,
amber light that once warmed the marrow
retreats into the safe hollows of the oak.
I feel the thickening of the rind
soft sap pulsing wet against parched skin
slowing into the silence of the rings.
I left pieces of myself in low places
small and pale buried beneath the weight of the soil
A wildness existed in the north I did not know
a spirit unburnt, of wind and water
pressed deep into the loam by the heel of years.
The ritual is not in the fire or the hardening
of the hand, nor the narrowing of the
eye, the sharpening of the flint against the stone of enough.
I am the monument and the mason
the tree and the woodcarver.
Hewing a heavy throne from the bones of a boy
who no longer exists,
Who thought the forest had no end.