The Quiet Roots
of an Ancient Tree

Heartache has a trail
during the heat of summer,
a mildewed trail that wept
into the earthward arch
of your cut,
shadowed you all the way down
to your hermitage of mercy.

But it was a wounded ruse;
a fallacy nestled through
the quiet roots of an ancient tree,
where the depths echoed
of some stagnant sulfurous mud,
with nowhere to go but sideways.

Now only if you could twist
your heart up to winter,
upward to the earth when the glacial
snow would hunch over
the coppice of your half-thrust trail,
a kindred itching and aching
to be touched,
puncturing the ground
with your gnarls
like a tractor's teeth.