Tree on the Hill
It doesn’t grow
it remembers upward,
each branch a green-tinged scream
curved into the ache of sun.

Leaves don’t fall
they betray,
drifting like forgotten tongues
gold-lipped,
summer-sick,
too heavy to lie still.

The bark
creased like an elder’s laughter
etched in dirtscript,
smells of storms caught mid-prayer
and mosses that whisper
to no one in particular.

Its roots?
They grip the hill
like a jealous god,
fingers buried in the soil’s old heartbreak,
sipping secrets from beneath the grassline.

And the wind
it doesn’t pass.
It negotiates.
Swirls between the limbs like lost voices
asking the tree if it's still waiting,
still listening,
still pretending to be alive.