Why would you stay in this comfort when it’s bringing you discomfort?
The tree lets the wind take its leaves.

For days I have drawn fern - shaped lines in the absence of words. Criss - cross stalk and petals made me believe words were to attain from leafy cartoons. Ferns dipped in gloam green stains and titled 'Fern du Lac', dotted. I buried them in the back garden, below the brown - veined plum tree, for they neither proffessed nor proved anything. One would pass clay clear mornings, mist lit noons, afternoons of pink flush, moth buzzing nights and start again. I passed and paled in between, with one thought beating in mind: my dreams rest in fern, moss and lichen. What was its spring, soil and root? How did it own, mingle, obscure, confuse, diffuse and use me? It kept silence, and silence reinforced dreams and gave form. When in possession of form, one reaches for meaning and cannot break.

The Fall is upon us
My Dear!
It's when the birds leave
for their new home...
So you may flee
as well
and I will watch you leaving
happily
like a stubborn tree.

❝ i am a dead tree
   that kids fill with carvings of 'i hate yous'

   sticky webs of old lies and deception
   clings around my withered branches
   that sit dead and blind my sight

   my roots are watered
   by polluted streams while
   acid rain runs through my veins
   like a fracking well with oily leaks  
   that causes me to choke
   and cough up bad blood

   angry winds pass though me
   and i stand engulfed with stillness
   for i am afraid the slightest of movement
   may cause me my demise

   i remember the days
   when i was but a young tree

   i provided home for the birds
   and shade for the people
   to protect them from the sun's raging heat
   but now i am useless
   and hated
   and left alone

   but lo and behold
   i see my farmer striding towards me
   with an axe in his hands to chop me down

   he delivered blows to my body
   that led me into bits and pieces
   to be thrown in the fire

   i smiled and thought;
   at least i was still of use for warmth
   during the cruelty of cold days

   but as i fell from once my might
   i had glimpsed on a little green
   a sapling growing from the earth
   reaching upon the skies

   in this i had learned
   life and death go hand in hand
   that from ashes unto ashes
   and to dust we must return

   but alas it is not the end
   as for the end signals a new beginning
   and as so does chances of a new life ❞

just thinking back
           on
my twenties and cracking
           a
smile for every tree I hollowed
           out
to make room for a new universe.


now,
in my thirties, I laugh at windows
           stacked
on top of Mercury's head as
           Venus covers her mouth and hides again.

Imagine they cut off your limbs
Hand and legs, all gone
But you’re a starfish
So it’s alright, they’ll grow back.
No wait, you’re a tree.
Once they cut you,
You lose a piece of yourself.
Those broken remains,
They use them
They use you, to build houses,
To build a warm space,
To protect them from the harsh storm.
If you were a starfish though,
Your limbs will start to grow
Slowly, but surely. And suddenly,
You’ll be your old self again,
Nothing more, nothing less.
A star in the sea
Or a tree in the wild,
Which would you be?