The Wishing Tree
by Kathleen Jamie
I stand neither in the wilderness
nor fairyland
but in the fold
of a green hill
the tilt from one parrish
into another.
To look at me
through a smirr of rain
is to taste the iron
in your own blood
because I hoard
the common currency
of longing: each wish
each secret assignation.
My limbs lift, scabbed
with greenish coins
I draw into my slow wood
fleur-de-lys, the enthroned Britannia.
Behind me, the land
reaches towards the Atlantic.
And though I'm poisoned
choking on the small change
of human hope,
daily beaten into me
look: I'm still alive -
in fact, in bud.
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