Decaedom: A Spell for Wild Cherry (Prunus serotina)   

Poetry
Written By Alison Granucci

All treeness is not done, no, for

Never done is treedecaedom when

Befungalina the Queen rules

The Kingdom of Decaedom.

When Black Knight Morbosum spews

Black Knot spores, Prunus willnotrot but,

Gallweakened, woodcracks until its heartrot

In the Kingdom of Decaedom.

Gallgirdlegrief. Each cherry branch

Buds no more. Wounded then fungolonized,

Detritivores are deteriordoom serving

The Kingdom of Decaedom.

But Wild Cherry revivaldies!

Bacteria, earthworms, fungiall recylefeast —

All to celebrate impermanence which is

The Kingdom of Decaedom.

Rise again, treedom! Yes, rise again,

Wild Cherry of the Wood!

O, would cherrywood

Would wood again become, ascending

From its own treedecaedom.

All to beleaf again! Yes, we must believe

The leafness of recurwood, for the Majesty

Of Greenness is never done praising

The Queendom of Decaedom.

Alison Granucci

Alison Granucci is a poet and naturalist living in the Hudson Valley. In 2005, she founded Blue Flower Arts, a literary speaker’s agency, the first in this country to represent poets, but it wasn’t until she retired in 2020 that she began writing her own poetry. Her work is published or forthcoming in terrain.org, Great River Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Subnivean Journal (Award finalist), The Dewdrop, and an anthology of bird poems: Little by Little, the Bird Builds Its Nest by Paris Morning Publications. A 2023 Artist-in-residence at Trail Wood, the homestead of naturalist Edwin Way Teale, and 2022 graduate of the Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program, Alison serves a reader for The Rumpus, and is currently at work on a book length manuscript.

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