Tree of Faith
by Elizabeth Cranford Garcia
We think of it as evergreen,
a towering thing, stark
against the drifts of snow.
In the fall, all prickles and cones,
it condescends to the wind,
the others yellowed, shedding
their skins down to bare
branches. But what if it’s
deciduous, a letting go
of green, a learning of some other
color, what amber and burnt sienna
might coax from the soul?
What ice can teach
the naked arm about need,
what winter can learn
from each swollen joint
along the branch, what can wake
within it, pre-chartreuse,
before we can call it a bud?
What bare branches can reveal:
the nest, which is just a clutch
of brambles, a tangle of
mysterious tenets. Even this
is a made thing, some scheme
of bark and beak, an idea of home
pre-song. A place to wing you back,
to preen. Someplace to be born.
Elizabeth Cranford Garcia’s debut collection, Resurrected Body, received Cider Press Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize. Her work has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, Tar River Poetry, Image, RHINO, Chautauqua, Rappahannock Review, Portland Review, CALYX, and Mom Egg Review, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is a PhD student at Georgia State and mother of three. Read more at elizabethcranfordgarcia.com.
