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Self-portrait as a Smooth-skinned
Beech
Self-Portrait as a
Smooth-Skinned Beech
But do you remember the
tree? It overlooks
our childhood home like a lord. Watch me
as I slip my waist between its skin and raise my arms
in celebration of something yet to happen.
My roots twist like
toes into the quarry’s side.
I guess my position is built on trust.
I’d have moved me if I had been them, when they
might have noticed this skinny-ringed sapling
and perhaps thought
what sort of trouble
a fully grown specimen might have caused.
But they hadn’t built the house then.
This land was a half-forgotten quarry.
Their grandparents
hadn’t been born.
By the time they’d got their act together
I was already well-established. Sometime
in my teens, I lost the will for ears, preferring
the vibrations of my
own kind. In my forties
I gave away my eyes, and in my seventies I allowed
the wind my voice having proved my actions
would suffice. I go by scent and touch and believe me
when I claim they serve
me more than well
now I’m multi-limbed. I’m quite the crone.
Grey squirrels root through my hair for facets
of beech mast and I wear a pigeon
nest up high.
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