TheBanyanTree: salt fork treeline

[Mike Pingleton]

an old poem I recently dug up, dusted off and renovated.  I don't believe I 
ever posted it to the Tree - Mike

the birch whispers among brethren
smudged black runes on white bark 
too old to read.
oak and ash, anonymous at a distance
dogwood, redbud, mulberry understudies
asymmetric dark reachings against
a tumbling dusk.
all asleep, all await the awakening,
the searing rise of the heartwine,
the pale fire now collected cold below
the ashes of autumn's fallen fires.
patience yet thick for the quickening,
the pulse and burn missing from 
a hundred turnings.
in a brown valley the white bones
of the creekside sycamore rise, dropping
for unknown brethren downstream
brittle bark messages, saying simply
I am here. still.