Grounded

It's only just begun, it'll all be over soon.
The seed's been planted and life has taken root.
The network of veins, searching for water,
and with each turn of the hand, the pulse starts to falter.
But somewhere underneath there, its tiny veins feed,
out of need, and unaware that some might call it greed.
And the hands still spin wildly, perhaps much like a time lapse,
with respect only to the moments and points,
like the carving knife used to mark a memory,
a flash in the pan, a shot in the dark, a dream that won't let it be.

That dream, a random nest of debris, rests in the head of that still growing tree;
speckled eggs, gorged with the blood of their captive stillborn, don't shake or hatch.
Patience wanes with the moon as mother tries to detach herself.
So she whistles while she waits, too little, too late.
And she wonders if there's fate, or just faith.
Does either denote her as predisposed to detonate and explode?
She feels exposed, her empty life, her empty nest where dreams erode
is all she has to her name.
With the worms sleeping in, the alarm's been reset
and the bones of that mother bird are beset upon by the sun,
pouring through the tree's green grasp, outstretched like beggars hands,
and when they brown and decay, they bury the day,
like shelter from the coming rain.

Bitter is the swans song; a mocking requiem
that fills the tree with embarrassment and shame.
That skeleton tree rankles in the wind and his dream falls apart,
dropping like bombs, and with each thud of each piece,
made of twigs, clay and mud, the earth shudders and sways.
And when it rains, cleansing the mortal coil, the downward spiral,
the muddy soil gives way to a torrent of white wash horror,
the fall of the forest empire.

The tree begins to lose it's footing with nothing but nothing to latch onto.
The wind lays into it, soothing as a scream,
the tree's brown leaves are swept away.
It holds its breath, anticipating the plunge into the depths of the swelling river
and as long as it takes, there's no telling how long it will hold.
Its veins exposed by the failing land, hang free like toes
from the holes in the boot of a poor man.
As the sky continued to cry and light crept into the fog,
it realized it had survived while every other one had died;
those that bore fruit and life had failed to remain alive.
The forest floor, now a battlefield of fallen ones,
forever more a barren field, now that the storm is done.
But as the fungus and moss dissect the loss, did the tree reminisce on the fun?
If only to mourn the passing of those days which expired like the flare of a match fire,
or the flash of lightning whose bloom lasts for an instant before wilting in the black sky.
And it asks why must its desire be like the tightening of a noose,
keeping its distance, like day melting into night.