Marriage of True Woods

When the tree and I get married
All the folks will say, How strange,
Will they live with her folks the humans
Or in his forest with all the leaves?
And in the Fall will their children
Drop dryly about their knees?

O green sap runs through my daughters veins,
Her foliage is of scarlet hue.
Her father is a vast cathedral of oak,
Hair of vine and beard of moss.
O I love him as no other, for our roots
Run deep in strange genealogy.


Marianne Van House
September 16, 1989

original line drawing by Amy Seyfried