A tree grips tight a hilltop
     patched with browned grass and yellow clover.
Limbs clutch up at palsied angles.
Roots break from a dirty prison
     in small, gnarled humps; serpents moving at a pace
     too slow for most to care about.

O, but for those exponential branches!

One
     leads to three
          leads to twelve
               leads
     to fifty million
          hundred
thousand      and
                    one.

And while the white wind coaxes for weeks on end,
     new branches grow
     from most unexpected places.

No discernible pattern,
save up, out,
          away
                    away.

And if the sun would shine
     from dusk to dawn…
And if the sun would shine
     from dusk to dawn…
We might see:

A nickel-plated beetle,
     exploring an exponential explosion
     on a day when thereon sprouts a new bud.
Left alone, the infant needs to reach upwards
                         and beyond, little beggar,
but the beetle, too, has needs.

One thing
or the other
carries on.

Every branch dependent upon a trunk.

Every beetle dependent upon a branch.

Trees grow.
Beetles grow.
In our bellies, brains, and blood
each of us ferry the dead
     into the unknown –
          such is our infinity.

Meanwhile, this mote continues to be:
          sun, hills, beetles, trees.