The Elm Poem by Reva Kern

With many branches it seems like
A big bundle of charred firewood
It delays its death
Forever defoliated -
Yet under all skies
In dry air and wet
There are very strange aspects
Which engage your eye

After enormous activity
Swarming at the rotten foot
Of this small elm
The whole trunk is covered in moss
like a roof of a hamlet
braids of lichen
Festooned with ivy

It thus combines a double decaying state
Of horror and of beauty
Like that of snow
Covering flowers of the earth

Only it does not change!
One can still see
The old head in a dark mess
And its old body in a green robe