a poem as lovely as a tree?

I wrote this a while ago and, in light of the fact that the theme for next month’s edition of Festival of the Trees is “the magic of faerie trees,” decided to share it.  Context about what led me to write this poem can be found in this post.

 

Cypress Knees

“Mature cypress are seldom seen seen on St. Simons and Sapelo Islands because the few remaining stands are isolated to remote areas and none, to my knowledge, remain on Jekyll.”

-Taylor Schoettle, A Guide to a Georgia Barrier Island, 1996

Around a bend in the trail,
a row of cypress trees.

Many-legged creatures
frozen in mid-step,
marching without motion,
trolls made stone
by sunrise, unaware
that they defy the printed word.
Limbs lift delicate
green glory above
the palmettos.
Roots rise forsaking their
dark hidden homes,
gone topsy-turvy
and ignoring the call of gravity,
standing like the skyline
of an elvish city:
snorkels,
for trees to breathe with
when water rises at their feet.

Trees, like skinks and spiders, care nothing for words in books
or for any words at all.

 

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