Trees don’t drag their broken
Branches. A branch breaks and
It hangs until it falls,
Which could take months or years.
All I know, wrote Abbey,
Is a juniper takes
A long time to die. Here,
A splintered branch hangs off
A healthy-looking tree,
No parasitic wreaths
Of mistletoe on it.
Who knows what accidents
Count as part of dying?
Sometimes you lose a branch
And outlive your neighbors.
Nothing breaks cleanly from
Junipers, however.
Their arms are bark-skin sheaves,
Twisted, ropy, fibrous.
You couldn’t just snap this
One off, as tenuous
Connections the strands left
Are to the branch’s base.
Leave it. Check back next spring.
Thursday, April 6, 2023
The Clinging Fracture
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6 Apr 23
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