Your flames lick at my soul
Shot through your grueling glaze
Screaming for an apology
Which I will never give

You made me cry
Broke me down
No matter how hard I'd try
You snapped my will
Like a twig
And made me weep inside

Beaten or broken as I may be
I hope that now you will see
For lack of my strength
Merits not my, apology

Others might  even envy
The love I thought you had for me
But now it is clear to see
That those thoughts weren't reality

Call it pride or loyalty
What ever you will really
I will stand tall and free
As your flames lick at me

I won't applogize for your wrongs
Even if I loved you once
I'll let you burn to embers
As I refuse to fuel that fire

Oh beautiful rosy shade tree
Do you touch the spirit of me?
Which way will you fall?
I will wait and cogitate for you,
My love, just for me too
A family of giants
That we are;

A body hunched over
With precious shards;
To know so simply the touch
As I sleep alone
In my broken world;
The molasses air
Slowly shroud in mists
Across the straits
To hear our echoes cry,
As I sit beneath the tree branch and ponder
About you, just you;

Sitting there waiting and looking for
Hopefully the spirit heals with time
And tide
Oh gentle waters
Bring my heart home to you.
And sitting beneath a branch
As I sit and pounder
And wonder
About the shores with my favored eye,
And your kiss of past times;

As my mysteries past stir
And arise to thee my love.
Oh sweet spirit
Spirit of mine
Keep me safe for thee
As I sit beneath the branch and ponder
And wonder
About my love for you and me;
So my darling hold me close
Let me feel your love to me
Touch my hair so gently
Tell me of your lasting love
So wrap your limbs around my form
Tell me sweet things
Before I hear the news
Of the goodbye of long ago;

As I sit and ponder
As I sit and wonder
As I sit and dream of the love of you.

Debbie Brooks 2014

a tree welcomes climbers
my childhood friends could tell you
How many we climbed, I do not remember
But Tree's do remember, silent remembering
If you damage a tree, a tree's neighbours, weep
They weep their sap, and they weep for their friends
They weep because they hurt and they weep for a future

Mother told us when we were younger not
to step foot into the woods or else our bodies
would disappear like birch tree into morning
sky.

At night in the dark with our hushed breathing
lying underneath soft blue quilt and the moon pale
as Mother’s face shining through the bedroom window
she told us stories about wolves with teeth sharp
and naked, sinister and still like a fresh mistake, or like
the stories themselves, the ones that lulled us into
hard-edged sleep.

Now at night in the dark with my hushed breathing
lying underneath trees tall as a father I’ve never met
I am breaking every law I’ve ever known, standing
with feet bare and rough like the body of a toddler
that’s been scratched by saltwater. Now the moon
is as rough and gold as a cruel boy’s face.

Here I am breaking every law I’ve ever known
but also here I no longer have a mother. Here
there are finally people I can learn how to miss
and the trees look more like tombstones; on one:
the name of a father long gone, another: mother dead
with age, a third: boy dead by drowning.

If somebody could see me now they would see
the body of somebody holy, soft and aching and wrinkled.