Poem: Quest

 

Quest

 

day one

 

every fray of rot a tress.

the afterlife is here, right here,

this understory of vestiges.

life itself is entombed.

and yet they all continue to feed,

from sprig to trunk.

still, everyone knows

the dead lurk in the humus.

 

day two

 

more terrible than ghosts,

i could peel noses or pare lips,

ignoring the pleas

of the faces in birch bark,

or a toadstool’s lament.

it’s far too lucullan,

too awful what is demanded of us.

i ... 

i am Saturn.

day three

 

the spruce are vicious gossips,

passive-aggressive of hiss and creak.

and yet they are not the damned.

 

day four

 

to rule the damned

is to be what they have been,

what they hate still

and yet also now envy--

and will serve if only for the chance

at a sprinkle, a fleet moment  

of dawnish light.

 

day five

 

i could walk forever here,

among the corpses of moss

which lack all flesh,

far under the callous towers

of a few overlording oaks

and never seek

to return to this place, if i left,

‘in a while.’

 

 

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