Xylophile

   
Let me inhale dirty wood    
raw with bloody after-
birth of unbathed soil.    
Let me feel a compass    
of conduits beneath bare    
feet, those gnarled arteries    
whose arthritic limbs    
stretch deep into    
petrified bone and egg.    
I yearn to hear the creaking    
back of pines keeping    
peace with the wind,    
shooting their prickly    
coat of quills over    
the dampened floor    
beneath my steps.    
To taste feral blood    
from the Hawk's beak;    
from the shadow…    
the strike…the screech:    
Life transcending this planet.    
   
I briefly wince for the ethereal    
delicacy being peeled    
from its skeletal remains   
before honing my own    
survival skills.      
~