K.R.Prior
×
Dryad
oh yes, she’s there,
all the trees
along this coastline
through all the time
they’ve grown here
tree eternity
all the leaves
all the rings
enclosing her
--only here


no, it’s not an illusion,
in fact, you can see her at times
shopping at Thrifty Foods
like any other treewife
in the produce section
--vegetarian of course,
metabolism must be different—
standing chatting
at the checkout,
recycling
her plastic bags,


or in the park
barefoot under
an arbutus raising
long smooth marbly limbs
lazily over a dark
reach of the lake.


what you sense here,
what you see there
is a distilling 
of the idea
of dendron;
it’s biologically odd,
no doubt of that,
but really no odder
than nuclear physics:
we should think of her
as a quark
having charm


could you touch her?
no one would dare.