When the branches veer towards the ground you can 

climb the trees—up and up, just as you’d ditch

ladder rungs you’re standing on. When you look

there are the small shriveled blackberries from this year

Alemannic mangoes that are still sweet 

when you’re still, you hear how your blood wanders 

its pathways, telling stories from years ago when you flew

alongside buzzards when we’re still, we hear the roots 

connecting beech to beech under the frozen soil 

see wounds not heal but scar as we go on 

the dead bumblebees are alive again there are still clearings 

where plantains grow for us to put on scrapes 

when we turn our faces to each other from the inside 

of the bark we see that this year the blackberries are round again

that Alemannic mangoes have a core made of light that we— 

when we walk together—do not disappear