A Spalting, though

by Frederick Wilbur

Fungi finger the punky heart
of wood with inkings of prophesy
that rot is sure to come —
first corruption of once stalwart grain,
like the expanding blemish on an apricot,
like guilt sabotaging the sacred of memory.

Though these scribbles are scriptures of ruin,
such wood is scouted out, indeed, prized
by wood turners whose round truth
is the vessel of their days, is a
sympathetic reading of Time’s dispossessed.