The beech tree has seven eyes
where limbs used to be,
each of them gazing upward.
Down below, the scars
of old, knife-cut graffiti:
Smoke Up. Fly High. Manson Lives.
A warbler in the crown
of a neighboring oak,
its shadow crossing my face.
Dave Bonta (bio) crowd-sources his problems by following his gut, which he shares with 100 trillion of his closest microbial friends — a close-knit, symbiotic community comprising several thousand species of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. In a similarly collaborative fashion, all of Dave’s writing is available for reuse and creative remix under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. For attribution in printed material, his name (Dave Bonta) will suffice, but for web use, please link back to the original. Contact him for permission to waive the “share alike” provision (e.g. for use in a conventionally copyrighted work).