Serpentine Soil Poem by Shiraz Bautista

Rustling like the faded foliage of a floundering yew
I sweetly slide off of my bristling branches
onto broken bedrock
littered with dead cut flowers
pale and powerless
recounting yesteryears as the emerald enigma that
embroidered crimson crowns of resplendent orchards
brimming with virginal exuberance

As I split further my source
thoughtfully dotting these thickets like spots on a leopard
I ruefully relieve myself in this serpentine soil
a mosaic of flavor for shamanistic forays into fractal dimensions
unrooted from the aridity that intermediates
our initial infantile incision and our soothing swan song