DRYAD

How single and alone I am tonight,

how narrow when I wake.

My sighs are not real,

but shaped like tear drops, even so.

I am shaking,

like birches in the wind,

and will the wind.

In spring and summer I am green,

the birds love me,

and they sing in my branches,

but I cannot give real shade,

only the spattered patterns

light has made between.

I wake, wavering, in a dream

have I seen my foot

through to the skeleton,

where the bones froth, like a sea

of wanting, shooting quills of folly:

and if I run, who will die,

when all is done,

as done it all must be?

Will I die, or shall it be the tree?

I am spell-caught,

could I come if one should call,

or touch with love the leaves that fall?

Should I then be free?

Or am I only tree?

© 2010 Charlotte Merrill Jensen