A Branch, or Writing

A single pine.

The roots

could not be seen.

The trunk

rose straight

and broke once near the top.

Broken as it was,

from the lower trunk

branches reached out.

For a while

I could not tell

whether they were branches

or writing.

Among the branches

I read two characters.

秋史 — Chusa.

I

said that name

softly.

Even after I closed my mouth

my eyes followed the branches.

At the tips I had taken for pine needles

brushstrokes had gathered.

I remembered a tree

I had seen on the road a few days before.

A tree leaning to one side

from long years of wind.

That tree too

stood

broken.