Standing in Stillness

Standing in stillness
In this bleak
Midwinter
Amid the oaks
Yet to be
Tree to paper hard contrasts
Pressing now
A twisted limb
Ripped and torn
Blackened now
Against the pale grey
Marks 2B
Eyeing me
Kin to this tree

Out of the even doing

From nowhere, somewhere, further in
A rasping cut through
A part of everything - but that cry!
A scream out of its deepest
Terror shredding the rooted silence
Opened up
I could not find
The word that knew the sound
That reaching again sound.
From what was it made?
Had I drawn out some spirit
Some sprite - some banshee?
At first transfixed
Then I tried
To fix the sound
But before it was gone
That last scream was so violent.

Was this its own ending?
So loud.
Held so long.
Yet I could not locate it
In my known world of beings.

The eye remained
Of what had been
Standing in stillness.

28.12.24