in a loud forest at a new cut
Kneel, then, upon these roots, listening before the offered body, to the language of this ancient tree, cut now, far from canopy and now a waiting map of exposed flesh, etched with the record of seasons. The wound may sprout a new tree from inside the cracks of her severed body if the roots are intact, if disease does not kill what would.
Lords of the land
The only problem with that forward gaze was its original intent, to moor a land to an immature idea of the body she cradled while the cradled one, standing just past infancy, assumed dominion before he learned the force of a grown body, bowed––to stunning ignorance––as he kept his shoes on, surveying with proprietary gaze while making speeches, deaf to the winding hymns in currents past his plugged ears and blind to the ancient eyes perched just above, and forgetting the feel of her soils in his hands where once he kneeled.
