The Tree-Book

by MEREDITH STRICKER

in the tongue of my tree-book its reason, its unreason
its ponds and algae regrowth and new pages that whirr
in the startle of quail, their wing-blur ––
worry and splendor mark the days of a book, its languor
while at rest, wild speech when active or the purple magenta
longing of bees that allows us to imagine
the tree-book's reach and hive-like enclosure
and how it becomes a house for anyone who enters
with fields and fields of unwieldy rattlesnake grasses
mixed with vetch and cumulous clouds
when you leap into the river of a page you leap
into the river of your mind
where mind-rivers commingle with undergrowth
and thickets, expressways and bits of trash in wind

the hissing of a tiny warbler in a soft nest
held in immensity