Quercus alba sleeps in peeling paint
My starter wakes at three a.m., no complaint
Lichen maps the rivets, silver-gray
Dough climbs the bowl in quiet warm display
Roots find purchase in the cracked concrete
Gluten stretches elastic and sweet
Both of us wait for the slow reveal
Night gives what daylight cannot heal
Something rises in the depot night
Flour and rust catch the same pale light
Yeast and lichen kin beneath the skin
We wake the dead where the tracks begin
I measure rye in copper scoops precise
I count the stomata on dormant grass
The oven breathes a belly-full of flame
The cello weeps calling each by name
Rhizomes thread through ballast deep and blind
Fermentation bubbles slow and kind
Both of us tend what the dark conceals
Night gives what morning never yields
Something rises in the depot night
Flour and rust catch the same pale light
Yeast and lichen kin beneath the skin
We wake the dead where the tracks begin
Selaginella drinks the condenser drip
Steam rises where the scored loaf gives its lip
Spores and yeast both microscopic kings
Invisible architects of living things
I speak in binomial you speak in weight
We both know the patience that it takes to wait
The depot holds what commerce left behind
A loaf a fern the only growth we find
Peeling paint like bark protective thin
Crust cracks open letting life begin
Something rises in the depot night
Flour and rust catch the same pale light
Yeast and lichen kin beneath the skin
We wake the dead where the tracks begin
Dawn paints the tracks with powdered gold and rose
Phytochrome switches the fern unfolds
I pull the boule its ear sings crisp and loud
The frond uncurls unspooling from its shroud
Something rises in the depot night
Flour and rust catch the same pale light
Yeast and lichen kin beneath the skin
We wake the dead where the tracks begin
Quercus alba wakes in peeling paint
The starter sleeps its night shift complete
