Writer's Block -- Evie Shockley

       She made connections, drew, created them -
or had they been there, waiting to be found?
       The rain went drop, drop, and a silver tomb
of ice encased each branch and limb. The ground

       whispered its wish, the limbs bent to hear, tried
to cry, the tears stuck fast. It broke them, fear
       they wouldn't see spring, and they didn't. Sighed,
the slender trunks, into postures of prayer,

       and now they shoot their buds at her, like green
fires, sap barreling along, parallel
       to earth. The axes went chop, chop, to fell
the hangers-on that threatened overhead,

       the wood that would not. The will to (be) read
(is) (in) a splintered language, meant to mean.