it starts

it starts

from the darkness of mangrove dreaming

unable to surrender to time,

later stalked in death,

the stoic’s domain is the open marshland

under a red sky looming

where the arthritic bones refuse to bend

broken in the blatant malice of the elements,

and even then

its dignity is only served

by the chilling shrieks of stormbirds

astride crumbling limbs

whose space is a waiting graveyard

and valuable a wooden tear

where no mercy spills from the thousands

of lush, green enveloping peers,

so laden with life

so unsparing

that no two trees help one another

amid the birth and dying cycle of this wetland

if only it could speak

and touch human ears

someone may then appreciate

the frozen insanity

that accompanies

the greying presence

of a decaying mangrove tree