10. Woodwork

Something broke the pattern of the trees,
the vertical and upward sweeping stems
this row of straight young saplings
with smooth grey polished bark,
stretched and curling,
only by their swelling girth;
like potted saplings on a market stall,
all were growing from one wrinkled, horizontal trunk
layered almost on the ground,
and if we traced the path
the thread of juices,
moving down we’d reach a jagged gasping gape
with tapering splinters jutting out
but not completely snapped.
The one small part intact
maintains a conduit, and from that
the young growth blooms
salvaged from a storm
whose violence can only be presumed.