In late fall a crown shall be touched by fire & open its seed to a disturbance of soilbare of duff & longstraw
a son shall stand
in a caustick heat
bury his roots deep & though the life veins of his needles flow brown
he shall rest in a catena of heartwood
an understory of three-awned hope
a night of lightning strike & ember
then rainfall upon xeric sandhills
& earth shall be humid with fand & rust
& he shall offer gall to philodox
a son shall stand in the forest of his seedstock shall rise like a candle from the burnt soil
shall grow toward the sunlight & he shall not reach out his limbs
for his heart unberghed to fire
his flesh thin above cambrium
in flames he shall reach toward me & stand
he shall call on the name of his lord god
he shall survive blight & offer his hand
he shall squeeze his yellow flesh into the light & he shall turn white & grown
& as my arms bare he shall cover me in his shade
he shall stand by my reddened heart
by my white snag of skeleton
he shall live when I burn
& he shall reach as a striver into my soil & he shall bring our fathers into his own.
