Poems by Elizabeth Markley

The Severed Tree

by Elizabeth Markley

From Canary Winter 2024-25

Elizabeth lives in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains a few miles from one muddy bank of the wide, winding Chattahoochee River.

Fir tree
In the living room
Outside, it is sixty-eight degrees in late December
(It is not supposed to be sixty-eight degrees in late December)
My children lie beneath the branches
Wonder in their eyes

Red and green lights whisper magic
They gaze up and miss
The trunk
Where the day laborer neatly cleaved
The Douglas fir from its roots
Laceration still sticky with sap

No need for the fire
(It is sixty-eight degrees in late December)
But we light it anyway
A sacrifice to the fire gods
Prometheus, Agni, Surtr
Enough, they say, the world is burning

I’m sorry, my babies
I think as I look upon the scene
Their future selves answer me
In the light of the severed tree

So are we