Proud tree, full of life, under tropical sky.

Swamp below, a river snakes and idles through the roots.

Tree falls, floods come and smother the fallen stands.

Covered by silty bedding, the tree lies at rest.

Ages pass, the corpse sinks beneath the Earth’s shedding skin.

Pressure builds, weight bears down, leaves stone where silt had been.

Layer of black bones bears witness to deluge past,

now dug by steel-toothed yellow monsters.

Crushed and broken, no ceremony for the exhumed.

Raised out of the earth to brief heights, then falling onto the funeral train.

The long cortege judders through points and junctions,

led towards the electric temple.

Ground to dust, then blown into the fiery column.

Burns bright, burns white, breathing life to the world of modern man.

Up it floats on the smouldering stream,

till cooler air and static charge claim the ash for their own.

The tap of hammers frees the fragments to a second grave.

The tree now rests, pale powdery phantom of its former self,

drowned and buried, burned, collected.

Once a tree; changed by water, wind, and fire.