Arboreal Desperation

And no-one knows the darkness at the root
that’s hidden by the flower-bearing shoot.
But read it in the furrows in my bark:
a different story’s written cold and stark
about the winter, death and sleep. Struck mute,

we stand all naked, shadowless, and mark
the ravages of time, as sharp as shark-
teeth bared in stealthy submarine pursuit.
And no-one knows the dark

that whispers with the rain, dissolves like soot
in every liquid dawn. Though summer’s fruit
will ripen and hang heavy round the park
where lovers walk, the singing of the lark
cannot erase the tracks of winter’s boot,
and no-one knows the dark.

--readwritepoem

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