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Writer's pictureSean Ray

The Arborist

My arm clutches my hollow tree,

One bare branch only offers absence,

My ear does not rest on her blue-gray timber this time,

Though crackling I hear,

From her rotting roots.


Bark separates from her trunk,

And exposes the brooding space between us,

So pale, so numb, so drenched in death.


Winter’s display of decay.


My arm drags down to her hip,

Eyes loosely placed on her chipping bark,


Through the chilled, stinging breeze

Her mournful leaves

Somberly whisper into my shoulder

“Don’t look at me with those blue eyes,

They make me so sad.”


I agree.


My feet secede from my tree,

She belongs to the earth,

For me to bloom,

I release the tree.

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