Trees

The wood that does not rot in water. The tree that bleeds orange when it is cut.

Sweetness and cyanide share the same ancient stone.

The tree that carries three stories: the garden, the orchard, the island beyond the west.

The world was made of it. The world is ending in it. These things are related.

The tree that poisons its own ground to reign alone.

It has stood sentinel on these hills since before your name.

The tree that drinks the sea and feeds the world.

The silver ghost that purifies air and poisons dreams.

The tree that fed empires quietly, and was forgotten.

You may rest beneath it. You may not cut it down.

The undying king. Red berries in December. The tree that was here before Christmas arrived.

Autumn's last confession, written in fire and falling.

A fruit that exists because of an ancient mistake, repeated with enough intention to become tradition.

The oldest sweetness, ripened at the edge of empires.

The desert's oldest bargain: sweetness wrung from bone-dry earth.

The Druids did not worship in groves. They worshipped in oak groves. The distinction matters.

The oldest sentinel still exhales its resinous memory.

Plant it by the gate. Something is always watching for a reason to enter.

The spice that built a trade empire, quietly carcinogenic.

The first tree back after the ice. It has always known how to begin.

Witches danced beneath walnut trees. The tree remembered every step.

Grief. Divination. Aspirin. The tree knew about pain long before chemistry did.

The name means pliant, not witch. But the witch association arrived anyway and stayed.

It was old before the church was built around it. It will be here after.