A birch grows ringed

by the hollowed case of an old beech,

once massive, felled flat by some cataclysm

or careless hand.

A gold star of lichen and fungus marks its fall,

and fades into the black soil of nurture.

There’s green, too, the moss sheltering

in the grooves of the remains.

And there, in the center, the sapling-by-comparison,

of a kind with its ancestor.

Supported, it reaches straight from the center,

hourglass branches not yet joining the surrounding trees

in the soaked gray sky,

dark green leaves with yellow undersides,

striped bark not old enough to peel,

to rip away as the skin of a blister.

The round flat petals of the undead wood ring

still shelter the mulch of organics around the tree,

insects and worms brought forth by the wet,

a wall, an altar not fully destroyed,

while all around

rain, rain, rain.