Arboreal

It was always the forest
Of the mind that the forest
Of woods resembled and not

The other way around. Trees
And their entangled shadows
Suggested the external

Embodiment of shadowed,
Mutually entangled
Thoughts, drifting pollen rooting

In the black soil of the skull.
You didn’t need to see nerves
Drawn by Ramón y Cajal

To sense the deeper forest,
Fungi, whispers, worms and all,
Was the home wood of your thoughts.

The mind. The mind was never
Yours, no more than pines belong
To the birds in their branches

Or to the stones their roots split.
Mind colonized, drifting in.
You just built your nests in it.