Blood

Blood dries to deep amber

resin setting sweetly.

Earthbound vessels

carry rest and repair upward

create solace in the arms of maples.

Sky, sun and rain, wind

are clothes to them:

and man-made metal

tree veins tapped

for still-flowing life.

I sit in the shadow of my father

his boughs reaching up to heaven

shaded by clouds as he shelters me

making sunlight and soil drinkable.

I am a butterfly with a silver proboscis.

I stab, blood dripping stickily down

the wound prone to infection

and drink into a bucket throat

too eager to drink life from the earth

than to let life drink water from it.

The blood is golden, sacred

kingly as the giants taken from.

They stand, green armies

not defending but standing

silent sentinels guarding lands of free peoples.

Blood boils down

to sugar, pleasure, few words

sweet things, going

on pancakes, small things

a drop to cereal or tea.

Within the source, it runs

much deeper, much stronger

making bark sure

not brittle, deep full roots

and great balanced boughs.

Dense memory lies in blood

boiling it reveals the core

the healing simple nature

of a quiet thing near forgotten

on Tuesday’s pastries.

It is wood that warms

not fire

crackling sounds not found in flame

but in the graciously given limbs

of towering green lambs.

The wooden mountain feels no heat

for giving shade

knows no pain

when a fallen branch is burned.

My father feels no wonder

when turning deadly golden rays

to golden, drinkable light.