Canopy
Emily Berry


The weather was inside.

The branches trembled over the grass as if to apologise; then
they thumped and they came in.

And the trees shook everything off until they were bare and
clean. They held on to the ground with their long feet and leant
into the gale and back again.

This was their way with the wind.

They flung us down and flailed above us with their visions and 
their pale tree light.

I think they were telling us to survive. That's what a leaf feels
like anyway. We lay under their great awry display and they
tattooed us with light.

They got inside us and made us speak; I said my first word in
their language: 'canopy'.

I was crying and it felt like I was feeding. Be my mother, I said
to the trees, in the language of trees, which can't be transcribed,
and they shook their hair back, and they bent low with their
many arms, and they looked into my eyes as only trees can
look into the eyes of a person, they touched me with the rain
on their fingers till I was all droplets, till I was mist, and they said
that they would.