This is what happens
when you start making up
your own mind:
the tree drops its tantalizing fruit,
sheds its leaves, & the woodlot
shrinks around it
until it stands alone in a line
of fence posts & telephone poles,
trembling neurons sifting the wind for sparrows.
You become as gods,
endlessly bifurcating,
simple as stinkhorns.
In place of paradise
there’s a field, a pasture,
a dishy blankness of sky.
***
In response to an image prompt at Read Write Poem. Other responses are linked here.
Photo by camila tulcan, licenced under a Creative Commons license.