Poem 395
Transpiration is a word half remembered from sixth form biology, describing the process of water being drawn up from a tree’s roots through its trunk and branches until released as vapour by its leaves … I was thinking about the way memory is embodied and runs through us in a not dissimilar fashion …
Transpiration Of Memory
I am not haunted by you more than any visited tree gutted by lightning disgorging the walnut grain and stain of memory time curling into knots like targets remember the tree we stopped by its great rudder of fibrous root all bony shriveled muscle as if dying it had wrenched itself out paddling in pain the mushy ground I am not haunted so much as occupied flinging a ring each year on my expansion there in the pith inside age you trail a finger in the water the ghost river that moves upward through me that I empty into the air