Out the back a chorus of fog releases over
the ashen crowns that rise up from the red-
brick leaves like the bones of the buried awoken
from a landslide. These lumber gods that stand
centuries breathing with broken and bent limbs,
tentacles sent out to search for each other.
Evergreens huddle in an omen, untouched
by the red and gold that seeps up from the pores
of the land, where the sun no longer stretches out
its burning arms to this smoky plain, as if after
a long day, the forest to the north had lit a match
and quietly fallen asleep in its chair.