Notes

I Death Wood

My skeleton, the trembling tree,
hit by the axes of ambulances
due to the decay of disease.
My muscles languish as wilted leaves.
My organs are rotting red apples.
My soul is the searing wind, while
my thoughts tick like termites.

The ivy of MS illness wraps with
waste around my twisted trunk.
Suddenly, spiders of suicide
descend onto my branches.
They crawl across my broken bark,
crackling my rustic eyesight.

The sun, a golden unicorn, gone
into the forest of healthy laughter.
My wilted wood wanes in a cloud coma
with no moon, stars or watercolor sky.
Where are my wildflowers?
Where is my green gleam?
I wait and wish for black lighting.

II Birth Wood

My family, the fog where most
float in the underworld as veiled
ghosts along the grassy grounds.
My thirsty roots reach for them
like wild hands hungry in ebony soil.
Sometimes their memory perfumes
and pollinates my heart with prayers.

My friends are a flock of birds that
become singing bracelets upon my bark.
Their feathers grace me like silk hope.
Their beaks devour the suicide spiders
on my weak wood, and their cheerful
songs encourage me to bloom once again.

Full moon flashes as a white wizard,
wearing a cloak of competitive clouds,
while moody night smolders as his black hat.
Spirals of opal light make my bark bright.
Spirit moonbeams weave within my wood,
healing hollow shadows, and allowing me to
taste the monthly midnight milk of magic.

III Rain Wood

Spring steams with saturating rainfall,
sealing my splinters, washing away webs,
and the dirt of daily depression.
My sap slides like a slow moving sea.
My tree bends and bows in all
directions, sprouting with joy.
Jade fire erupts along my branches.

Raindrops beat like crystal hearts
upon my boughs and my blossoms.
These clear spheres of nature inspire
rebirth and germination of all life.
My apples sing as flutes, my leaves
clap hands, and my trunk plays harp.

My lover, the lone eagle, appears and flaps
his feathered wings upon my wooden nest.
Our love is best lived in traveling weather.
My limbs taste the last drops of dissipating dew
as the crocheting clouds release final rivers.
Deer court in the fermenting forest,
while golden unicorn grazes upon me.