Cuttings Deep

I venture again
Into the forgotten wilderness.
I walk through my years
Every step, every leaf,
Every new breath
Pushes in what I can’t expunge.

I wish you’d given me a token,
A reason to hope.
I sneak through this jungle of ghosts
And I’ve become one too.
I miss you. Have you moved on
From sticks and stones?

I tried to hide away during early growth
Under your top leaves, unbeknownst,
But I knew, I always knew,
Your roots spread farther underneath.
I was passing through, but you would stand
A mighty oak.

Here, in strange and familiar trees,
Green-filtered golden beams
Illuminate the lost, the found.
I thank my God.
I mourn my past.
I think to you.

A piece of you, how could I know?
When planted secret, planted deep,
Even broken offshoots regrow
In the right soil, in the right keep.
I thought I took a piece of you, but
Maybe I left a piece of me.

Striated clay half emerges;
Earth’s fractured rib cage.
Roots, like talons, exhume the sepulcher.
Streams dredge where they converge.
Nature airs her secrets on the finest stage.
I wish I’d told the truth.