The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Arboreaphilic

Toes stretch short of the underwater
pools of mineral rich atomic verd
just as arms outstretched fall short
of the canopy captured clouds spirated
by a chimera of symbiotic animation 
caught in the river flow between
hyperbolic branches - how shall I 
understand the conjoining of heaven
and earth when my singularity is 
mostly asymptotic and lacking the 
brilliance of hidden umber tones
transformed on a palette of azure 
and sunshine into tessellated verdure
so unlike the verdigris of a soul
wizened by the droop of mere decades

my admiration steels my backbone into
a glorious obelisk of an uncrossed torso
yet my acuity cannot encompass the 
weight of pock-striated, bark-bronzed
and under-burled heartwood glowing like
a lightning strike caught in swirling grain
rich with resinous memories softly sugared
and leaking like tears defying the worded
with icons of amber clarity while tossing
silver pieces of copal at the feet of
the squirrelly priests who like me fail
to arborealate even within our own kind

here among the welcoming-branch-sway
nests of the breeding borrow solidity
to weather the perseveration of storms
and enjoy the decadence of an undeserved 
oasis of monkeyladders and the careful
crowding of crowns shy yet searching
unbothered by the nectarians who
cherry pick among the choicest blossoms
for here the hungry are finally fed

amidst the lofty heights of the Chartreuse
tarry the fall of flagrant feathers 
soon to be cast across the migrating sky 
like eyes scattered into the nightly abyss
echoing with the colliding of silent nebulae
catching the fall of wandering starfire

to look down is to plunge into the whale
so our gaze rises on the thermoclines,
our feeble talons unable to firmly grasp

the tip where dawn twinkles its ever kiss
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