Skeleton tree, Skeleton tree,

Can’t believe

Deep inside There’s a life or a leaf Skeleton tree Skeleton tree

Can’t believe

Spinning wheel Or a cabin door

Cherry bowl

Violin

A poem A song A blossom A spring

Skeleton tree

I waded down to the cherry tree to watch it drowning in the sea, arms reaching for ropes of wind, limbs floundering under the rain. Waves of weather tore at its sleeves, the jet stream wanting to rive its marrow

into tomorrow,

All winter it stood there, iron and bone, obsidian antlers, trunk of stone. On New Year’s Day, to tap its skin with a toffee hammer or tuning fork would have been to deliver a lightning bolt and splinter its knuckles, elbows and knees

into smithereens.

Skeleton tree Skeleton tree

Can’t believe

Deep inside There’s a life or a leaf

Skeleton tree Skeleton tree

Can’t believe

Spinning wheel

Or a cabin door

Cherry bowl Violin

A poem A song A blossom A spring

Skeleton tree

One sleepless dawn, in the aftermath, I walked the plank of the garden path, and caught the morning picking the lock of the frozen pond; the shipwrecked cherry was suddenly fleshed in electric pink and transfigured now from yesterday

into ecstasy. Skeleton tree, Skeleton tree, can’t believe that deep inside there’s a life or a leaf.

Can’t believe there’s a writing desk, [Sung in background: Deep inside There’s a life or a leaf)

a chapel floor,

a spinning wheel, a cabin door, [Sung in background: Skeleton tree Skeleton tree]

a cherry bowl, a violin, a poem, a song, [Sung in background: Can’t believe]

a blossom, a spring.

Spinning wheel Or a cabin door Skeleton tree Skeleton tree Can’t believe