I have seen you.
Gazed upon your roots
fiercely embedded in soil.
I saw you in the skin of trees,
and god I tried-
yet I never saw you through a looking glass.
I know to paint a fire
on my mirror is the closest
I can ever get.

They tried to touch you,
laid their unloved hands on burning ebony -
and now their skin melts like candle wax,
seeping through the cracks
of the pavement, through the earth
and turn to water
flowing into the roots of your forests.
You let anguish make you
taller.

You are still moon to me,
still goddess - unreachable by these words,
straw to your
own gold.
Know that I visited the mines in your garden
every night, I
gazed upon woods and cried
into the words you stitched into skylines.
You gave me flowers
from your tree.

Even now, you give me flowers.