Bound in Hiding

The book was the book
You’d dreamed of so long—
In your hands, lyrics,

But, in rewriting,
A novel of woods,
Impenetrable

To axe, chains, and fires—
Woods such as humans
Are becoming, dark

As woods used to be,
All the characters,
Trunks and branches

Who deep in the bones
Of their roots and dreams
Have reacquired speech.

You opened a page,
Deciphered a line,
And there was a text

With a narrative
Twist, remote aspen
Clone having betrayed

A cottonwood seed.
Ponderosas, wind,
The night coming in,

Songbirds weren’t
Communicating
So much as the tips

Of the roots of trees,
Intertwined, named, with
Personalities.

That’s your story, then.
The lyrics stay in
The ur-text you see.

And you can keep both—
Prose tales from lyric
Anthropology.