The botanist kneels on crushed shale driveway
Quercus alba leaves filter grey twilight
Envelope swells with groundwater and clay
Ink bleeds blue through pulp and night
Silt and ink marry in dark loam
Letters dissolve where footsteps roam
No postmark saves what soil claims home
Only roots remember what's known
Rain percolates through chert and sand
Acer saccharum sap rises slow
Address blurred by mineral hand
Carbon dating what we used to know
Earthworms aerate the folded sheet
Lumbricus terrestris reads each line
Fungal threads where signatures meet
Hyphae stitch what rain makes fine
Silt and ink marry in dark loam
Letters dissolve where footsteps roam
No postmark saves what soil claims home
Only roots remember what's known
Mycorrhizal network maps the text
Phosphorus trades for nitrogen words
Decomposition happens next
Silence speaks what speech disturbs
Dawn reveals the gravel skin intact
Pinus strobus drops a needle crown
Letter gone but information tracked
In xylem rings it won't wash down
Silt and ink marry in dark loam
Letters dissolve where footsteps roam
No postmark saves what soil claims home
Only roots remember what's known
Roots hold the story stone keeps the sound
Silt and ink the only ground