heartwood

Shape-shifting tresses

strange juxtapositions

revealing imaginations

we enter the twilight

of life.

The strip-tease

tangled strands of the tree

a welcome home

of wayward insects,

a larder for birds,

and education

for prising fingers

of curious children.

A wooden tear

from heartwood

in the eye

of a witness to lovers

and passions of youth;

it has no names carved

in etched revelation.

It cries alone

for wasted love.