I swear there’s an Ent seeding in my imagination. These days all I can think about is trees.
I photograph trees, poem trees, and contemplate trees. Basically, I can go outside and stare at trees for an uncannily long time.
Not surprisingly, then, trees ended up starring in my fifth 100 Themes poem, which had a theme of —
ROT
Harsh word. But harsh words make great prompts.
While trying to excavate this poem — “excavate” being the best way to describe my typical poeming process — I had a number of false starts. The rot theme invited a lot of messy emotions, fluttering around like a cloud of moths, and I had to be patient to finally nab one.
Fortunately (I suppose?), there was a night last week when I was feeling a little too much and couldn’t express it in any other way but in verse.
So, after a little cleaning up, this is what we’ve got. It’s called “Empty Pods.”
Empty Pods
One-thirty in the morning, the tree roots
in my chest. It burrows through throat
and belly, vessel and nerve, feeding on chips of starlight,
tendrils of hope and a dream’s afterglow.
When it punctures my eyes, I give in—
the tree knows it’s fated to wither,
blacken and collapse, consumed again
by its own hollow core.
Two-thirty in the morning, the lump in my throat
knots, germinates and sprouts, blooming
by dawn. I work my mouth around a nothing-word,
a no-one-word, a syllable that crumbles
to powder the moment it’s spoken,
only to germinate again.
At three, I wake, and notice:
what a garden I’ve made of these.
My vast no-one’s-glory, my secret field
of nothing-reaped, my empty pods strewn
about this body, secreting the aroma of a lie
told twenty-seven times—
What a garden of fruitless desires, decaying
at the roots of ripening hours.
And now … it’s your turn.
Please share a link to your “rot” poem in the comments below — or, if you know of another good poem on this theme, please share that as well.
Let’s spread the love of poetry!
Wow Randi your poem is epic and powerful! Very gripping, I love poetry, don’t read enough of it and definitely don’t write it, but I just want to share that I think your poem is amazing and brings up deep and profound emotions, it kind of makes me want to write poetry, though maybe only in the privacy of my own journal.
Glad you liked it! And I’m especially glad you feel (even a little) inspired to write your own poetry. Even if it just stays in a journal, it can be so illuminating. I find poetry works as a nice warm-up to other creative pursuits, as well.