This night a yellow moon
stalks root and branch.
There’s a waving sagebrush breeze
to twitch wary whiskers.
The star-salted fields
and dark wooded islands
merge in a wash
of shoaling shadows.
Fox and rabbit are awake,
they sniff or tremble,
yet celebrate each warm breath.
This night ignites flames
in covered eyes,
we feel the high, dangerous joy
of all that hunt and hide.
This night a yellow moon
stalks root and branch.
There’s a waving sagebrush breeze
to twitch wary whiskers.
The star-salted fields
and dark wooded islands
merge in a wash
of shoaling shadows.
Fox and rabbit are awake,
they sniff or tremble,
yet celebrate each warm breath.
This night ignites flames
in covered eyes.
We feel the high, dangerous joy
of all that hunt and hide.
There she is, she’s grown beyond root and branch,
at peace despite the incontinence of an unlooked for
wisdom.
And there I am,
of a sudden snagged by her knurled spell
as if she were the Virgin Mary, and I
a stumbling beast wandering through her world.
I want to keep my silence
let only my hot breath snort
but there, on a creaky bench a crone radiates,
as a young girl would
holding her newborn joyfully up to the heavens.
I surface from my reverie, my mood rocketing upwards
to a roofless place where the ages, are all still babes
rocking in a shining crib.
Shoulders back and head high I stroll past her.
“Good morrow mother,” I say with a light-head
(the archaic phrase seems appropriate, as if now
were already tomorrow).
“Good morrow good beast, will you witness”?
“I shall,” I reply,
“for am I not almost an angel, part conjurer,
part diviner, part beatific daemon,
a human thing, growing to be ever ageless?”
Together we both laugh out loud
as children may do.
Tree intertwining,
complete cosmos, root, and branch
mystic Celtic wood.
Night filters sight and sound
into caves of awareness
where owls and nightjars
clatter, where timorous creatures
forage and snuffle.
The forest has gathered here
for generations, it has its own language
ground through layers of nocturnal
sentience.
In the silent cabin they interface,
trace resonations between the unseen,
lull me into a deep-listening.
The night lends meaning
to each arboreal sound
as root and branch intone
their ancient prayers -
sounds that later turn to words,
an arboreal poetry
that reads me to sleep.
Family - written 9 years ago
Hobby is Genealogy
Root and branch,
family tree,
who I am,
my pedigree.
Joy profound,
eternal quest,
through family
we are blessed!
Whether present
or absent,
jubilant noise
or silent muse,
family joy
is good news.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.