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It’s nothing more than an uplifting shape
Made out of wood, but looking at it, along
About and inside it, I feel myself stretching
And ascending its leafy heights, wooden
Bones lengthening and creaking upwards with gritty,
Flex-and-extend satisfaction, my suddenly many fingers
Splayed out and fluttering at the casual insistence
Of the wind. I am a synthetic composition of bark
And blood, a symbiotic cyborg crafted of man and tree,
Determinedly reaching beyond the afflictions
Of one, the dumb limitations of the other.
It’s a majestic thing to feel my muscles spread
Out and harden along the wide, hard branches
Of my Vishnu arms, gripping the wood tighter
And tighter until you’d think it must pop and
Shoot arm-pulp out in every direction.
A beautiful and strangely primal instinct makes
My soul dance along the balance-beam limbs
Of this pirouetting tree, wrapping myself around
Its curves, filling the empty spaces with my
Escaping, vital leftovers. It’s just a shape made
Of wood, it makes a thump if you knock on it,
But inside, it’s a living and growing ark, a form
That stands outside the universe of man and earth
With the perfect potential to transport me out, to
Sit beneath it in eternal darkness or super-terrestrial
Light.