Scrub Wood

They are but sapless,
Things of growth.
I see them there,
And give an oath.

Like fluted stems,
They let the wind pass through.
Thirsty soil afforded them,
From which they grew.

Their wood has been clotted,
And now they are red.
In the cold chills of winter,
They are lifeless and dead.

A mass of entanglement,
In a vine-rooted hood.
They climb an embankment,
Just a heap of scrub-wood.

A wasteland all blemished,
Where dead stumps abound.
That piles through the years,
And covers the ground.


E.P. 1908 - 1989


Artwork of Arnold Briggs