By: JD DeHart

Wind shook the world, rattled the leaves
and we found ourselves trembling too,
traveling to the extremities of the manse,
walking among the diligent gardeners
silent in their rich dark toils and wars,
spraying parasite chemicals, dropping lumps
encouraging growth in their own way.
We passed the knotted trunks, the curled
fingers of smaller plants, reaching up for light,
then spiraling back on themselves, and at last
breezed by the smooth surface of the tree,
its skin smooth like deer velvet, the crooks
branching out in a bold trophy displays, a thought:
Fauna mingling with flora, the plant having
consumed the body of a buck, then sprouting
out of the pool of this malevolent incursion,
flicking the white tail away like a stag ridding
itself of the useless buzz of an insect.