Because my son announces Narnia trees! on his seventh winter solstice

Driving across Nebraska
we are witnessed

by a stand, no, a hundred mile strand,
of wizened iced trees.

From every tip, ominously fragile,
sag shining branched veins of glassed light.

I start to slough my skin,
drop muscles, organs, bones like leaves

reveal my nerves and veins,
stand up solid in the sun,

reaching, sagging,
a branched thing, silent and clear.

featured in A Prairie Journal (Winter 2008)