Laying among the saturated soils
Amidst the dry leaves and briers
The wood around me sturdy
Tulips urgent in growth
How can everything around me be so brave
When I am not.
When I am but a tightened voice, a hushed mind, I lay still and do not have the courage to whittle my way through the frost.
Resilient and beautiful in the decay of rock and withering thorn
As these things close in about me
I could only wish the transference
Into my own doubt.
Justification is a long-spent nightmare
Wasting closely by, sinking into the earth of my skull.
Catkins and the spines of gum trees hesitate in the sky
With no breeze, and no self-fulfillment
Never searching or wincing at another open sliver of bleeding heartwood.
It's funny how the moon has always been there, perchance
As it dangles now in the evening air
Full and light like a swan breaching a blue lake.
Almost breakable, almost surreal in strength.
Things grip to life in these woods.
Under my body thousands of dances for survival.
And here I feel it the most
A yearning that is not there, was never there,
Never born into me and never settled in my marrow.
Turning upward,
I speak my truth.
I can only be so much these wires of thorns
This tumult of leaves
Until I acquiesce to the night.