- A Root's Reckoning: What the Sycamore Knows -
by PenumbraPoet
Old Sycamore, do you bend your spine
to memorize the rain’s wet signature---
do you count the rings as loss or lore,
and when you sway, is it a wish or a whine?
Old Sycamore, how do you hold the grief
of split bark, the carpenter ant’s slow siege,
the girl who carved her lover’s lie so deep
sap wept two summers just to seal that leaf?
Old Sycamore, why do you raise your crown
like a chalice for the lightning’s kiss?
Do you mistake the storm for holy sound,
the scorched branch for a psalm of permanence?
Old Sycamore, where do you store the small
murders of frost, the robin’s broken egg,
the boy who climbed your shoulders just to fall,
then blamed the bruise upon your crooked leg?
Old Sycamore, when do you decide
to drop the limb too heavy with its dead---
do you practice mercy like a kind of pride,
or simply feel the rot and bow your head?
Old Sycamore, I ask because I know
the winter I keep folded in my chest.
Teach me which scars to wear and which to grow
through, before I ask which branch is next.