A Wilding

This apple tree's a wilding
And a blow-down. The trunk bends
Along the ground, then veers
Upward into live boughs
And dead branches skinned and silvered
By the wind, a cornucopia of antlers
Laced by green and burgeoning
Fruit--the main trunk though is split
Where lightning or the heaviness of holding
So much live and dead wood ripped it.
The wood inside is dead, is punk, so rich
Like nurtured earth, an alderberry
Has spurted root and shoot, the rotten
Flesh of one tree feeding the other.
I lean on the live and the dead
Trunk and see the alder in its turn
Split, the bark enclosing wood reverting
To the soil of life, in which an apple
Falls, and wrinkles, squishy, seed into sprouts.

Illustration by Blair Thornley