The Bone Tree
From beneath a long frozen earth
ancient human bones surface,
they rise far enough for an eye-socket
to be seeded.
A sapling grew from out of that skull.
In time the skull became a tree.
Like many tree’s its skeleton was on the outside
but the bone-tree’s bark was harder.
It grew gnarled and knotted, grimly striated
were it knurled as if a twisted growth
had tortured wood into blackened bone.
It’s leafage was scant, spiked, and leathery,
thorns were it canopy.
Some claimed it to be an old apple tree,
yet no fruit did it ever bear.
After hundreds of fruitless years
it fell, stuck down
by its own inflexibility,
its unbending bones broken forever.
From beneath a long frozen soil
where once a garden flourished
a serpent slid away
seeking more blind eyes.
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