Not the vagaries of sprawled, variegated leaves
or the monotony of rows of tree after tree
but this canyoned ridged knot, half dying wood and half moss
that makes its nook at the foot of a burnt-out half-stump,
and which if sketched would be feigned with approximate lines
by an eye unqualified to deal in minutiae
yet such detail is here; the cragged bark, petrol seared
the odd ribbed louse the intestinal villi of moss
the branded insignia: kezza n’ nosh woz ere
this last one is an ex machina, a middle finger
to dull mimesis, a rare, harnessed, sure deixis
that may lack ornament but knows its referent:
bow down!
like kezza, at nosh’s request, moving to genuflect.
