Tree blood

By Zinnia Hansen, 17, Port Townsend, WA

A tree has blood, thick blood
that fills its cold fractals with slow warmth.

We watch the rain fall.
And tenderly, I brush the water from my eyes.

At the base of my stomach, 
is dirt that tastes like the moon.

They planted a fairytale in my belly. 
And sang me to sleep until the seed grew into a dream.
My fingers smell like sticky sap and old firewood. 
To build a flame is to watch the leaves fall. 

You are only a stump now, 
Grandma Tree.

I climbed your branches,
I bent you into human shape.
I sang you to sleep.

I want you to hold me,
because the rain has come again. 
I want to believe in your blood,
in the fairytale coursing through your trunk.[Art opposite page: By Alden Bond, 13, Middlesex, VT – Fractal Tree]