Bone stag sings to the pregnant tree

holds a bundle of twigs, wound
like a mass of veins round a heart.
He points to the moon – to the scratches
the stars have left in the dark sky.
The tree nurses life to her heartwood,
stays calm, stays quiet. She remembers
how once, in the madness of March
she made love to a hare, handsome
and leaping, dancing and long-ear mad.
His paws played the tune of the moon
on her just-buried roots. He slept
in his scrape at the base of her bole,
curled into her bark – she loved
the shock of his soft. They said
such a match could never turn to fruit
yet a leveret grew inside her, magic
as night. When her time comes,
she will nurse him on acorns she makes.