Trees of My Flesh

Photo: telegraph.co.uk

Jake Saunders

Staff Writer

 

Frey, solid vapor –and the thunder winds,

Slowly pacing in circular motion,

Clouding judgment and sacrificial stares,

Cracked and lighted, and shimmering onward

A fault in the mouth of the sky, gloaming;

One tuft of mountainous puffery lines

Ever-floating and so whitely looming

Fair contrast to its back-dropped counterparts,

While most feathered compounds sway plainly on

Water-bodied horizons, grey and blue,

Sea-like, great and marvelous, thick and chilled –

Holy Sol, eradicate the confines of your lonely outer spaced dimension,

And show yourself, make known your lightness, shine!

Warmth among the deadest rouse of male-bark,

Feet like trunks, rooted and sure, stepping through

Persistent mire, o hands of pestilence

Create your bidding no more against me,

My living flesh and my cold, hollow bones

Of the earth, made whole in a wondrous eye,

My leaflet-fingertips, peeling façade,

My immaculate growing mark birches

When my limbs stretch and hold many ways out,

Strung out, stripped and bare, O god no longer

The aftermath singing like birds of eve’ –

 

Longing are the owls of the forest-heart,

Crying the whip-poor-will’s of the moon-pane,

Pining are the feathers in the wild dark

Laughing the chuck-will’s-widow in the gloaming

Extant are the deer in the wooded life

And weary are the wolves of harmony,

Rapid stride of cloven and padded strikes;

And lonesome the peaceful bear of great sleep.

Cunning are the feline of the shrouded soul

And bested is the slinking mammal’s weep

As lain upon the cedar’s pedestal;

Sederunt the sap on my canopy –

When agéd spirits of searching true will,

Youth remain in full and ravenous still.

 

Call upon me and sing over my boughs,

I shall give you warm shelter and honest rest

Under my nourishing limbs and calm peak,

Resolving calamitous reach rung clean,

Giving you rest and granting you slumber!

About LC Bridge

The Bridge is the student-run newspaper of Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey, Illinois. We publish relevant, informative stories in a monthly print edition that focus on local events as well as global happenings. In addition, the online edition of The Bridge (thelcbridge) is updated frequently to reflect new information and more timely events.
View all posts by LC Bridge →

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *