Embodied
Smooth as the beech bark,
cool to the touch, easy to caress,
slight ripples of wear, small scars,
his branches reaching out thin
and strong, his buds so full of spring,
leaves ready to fling open, but not yet.
Not sharply serrated, two inches deep
hunks of bark waiting to be broken off
protecting the heart of the maple and white ash;
even the sycamore mirrors
his smoothness, but for the patches
where its bark is lighter, as though
peeled away from sunburn and healed,
the sycamore casting spiky fruit
to protect itself, defend its young.
Not thinly lined up the trunk like
young striped maple, yet as uneffacing,
patient, like birch bending backwards with the force
of the wind when larger trees like the oak tremble.
His skin encasing a living breathing
body that can walk on ground
while the beech, oak, ash, and maple cannot.
He can walk above the fingers of their roots
to carry their taproots inside him,
nourished by airborne rhizomes unseen.
© Laura Rodley
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| Laura Rodley |
Pushcart Prize winner Laura Rodley's latest books are Turn Left at Normal by Big Table Press, Counter Point by Prolific Press, and Ribbons and Moths Poems for Children, winner of the Children's Nonfiction International Book Award and medalist for the Moonbeam Book Award for Children's Poetry.
Magical.
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