Winter 2024

The Wise Mystical Tree

The lofty trunk cannot be fully seen

without the lens of fear forcing a retreat. But the calluses

plagued his frame with a wight's woe, took his sheen

like symbiotes, whose host, once brimming with youth's chalice,


no longer embodied a titan. How

his atrophic arms fared no better, no longer

tending to his budding children and much less stronger

to even shoulder their riddled heavens now.


How does this stick leave a quaking impression

above a plateau’s height from a viewing session

with a perceived gloss that should be confused for rugged hands,


and unable from the blurred tall figure

to discern bone: So another ring forms and

another wrinkle creases. He is the one you transfigured.