Ripe Fruit

Ripe fruit hangs in the deadwood trees,

each blossom rich with marrow.

Only starving crows pluck

what dangles here.

Their stomachs thick with sorrow.

No creature dared touch

the blackened seed,

save the fat, fat crows

who plucked with greed.

But we are the deadwood trees,

in a grove that once held life.

We the hollow.

We the silent.

We who only scream at night.

The dead forest thickens

as our corpses rot.

Our fruit comes deadly,

and the crows begin to drop.

Strike the match.

Light up the branches.

Burn the roots,

and seed the ashes.

From the deadwood grave,

a new blossom grows.

A fresh fruit to harvest

from our garden of dead crows.