Pando

"a giant has lived quietly for the past 80,000 years"

I live in the roots of me.
I die each fall from my leaves,
Sporadically branch by branch,
And am reborn out of fires
That send me back underground
To consider why I am
Not one, not many, not gone.

Fantastic monsters scrape horns
Against my skin and flay me
With their short-lived teeth. Holes cut
The heart of me where trolls squat
In their huts made from my bones,
Wanting to be close to me,
Not one but many, soon gone.

I tremble as I perish,
And I tremble as I thrive.
All the smaller lives within
The smaller lives within them
Hum one dream of profusion,
Almost individual,
Mostly many, mostly gone.