Early on it was uncomfortable.

Patches of rough skin thickened on my back

and spread quickly like psoriasis.

I took a few heavy steps

as my clothes tattered into chains of ivy

round my legs.  I was thirsty, thirsty.

The tips of my fingers forked and forked again,

shivered into leaf.

A hot singing in the soles of my feet,

then the splintering of roots

like new teeth.  I welcomed the pain

because it meant they were through.

They knew their own purpose,

snaking into the earth

and dragging up water.

No more sense in movement,

in searching and striving

and all that truthless speech and touch.

Just simple encounters:

birds making casual use of my branches,

sheep coming to me for shelter.

Nothing to get done

but to suck in light,

translate it into green.

Turn off your phone.

                                   Place it, face down,

on cold sandstone: that oxblood-red back-step

she buffed for sixty years.

                                            Look out

past the well-kept lawn, its marrow stripes

while radio waves walk through walls,

bark, bone and steel:

                                  congregate to a signal.

Rest your eyes beyond the fence

on the trunks of birch that ebb into the wood.

Feel those white trees breathe.

                                                      The entropy

of branch and leaf may offer some relief.

Whether they do or don't,

after a time you must pick up your phone,

face its empty screen:

                                     turn it on again.