A History

Carry the trees forth to the hollow,
spoke the spirit, and the fish rose
from the seas. Bestowed upon each

was a seed to carry deep within itself
as they set out upon their pilgrimage
across the untamed primordial world,

the cobalt kingdom of coelacanth.
The first trees grew from deep within
the fish, emerging from their soft flesh:

smooth, leafless, scaled. Delivered
to the original soil, which lay precisely
at the point farthest from all things,

they threw down their roots, burrowing
into the river's muddy floor and pulling
it upward. Before the totality of the earth

was introduced to the air, it had never
known anything but wet, and it gasped
with ease of breath. Time eroded its path

to eternity; the trees sloughed their scales,
growing noble, cracked, and wise under
the guidance of the sun, a newfound ally,

to the great astonishment of the moon,
who remained the mercurial sorcerer
of the waters. Brandishing snow-gray

leaves, they called forth from shrinking
Panthalassa, the ancient gods, the gods
who carved themselves from limestone,

the gods who drowned the moonbeams
out of compassion in the early mornings,
when daybreak broke their backs.

The gods cradled the adolescent forest
with stony arms, and the trees spiraled
ever skyward, drinking the sun's praise.