Chevrefoil (poem) by Rowan Gibson

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Chevrefoil
(after Marie de France)

The honeysuckle and the hazel
live in symbiosis.
When hewn apart
the axe, the scissors,
the wielder kills both.

The lichen is a dual creature,
fungi and algae,
that cannot be separated,
would never exist without both.

The aspen forest
speaks to itself,
each other,
to keep each tree alive;
when burned the roots survive
and grow the forest anew—

We are all three of these
interdependent beings.
In severance, I starve.