the tombtrees tell their own story in leaf and written bark and for those with the right fingertips they can trace out a story in its shadows. how they first stuck bones in the earth and mounded them over and said let them be taken beneath but when the salts rose again the earth spat them up, as a dog chokes, and from their seed grew a shroud of white willow and prophet limb that wavered in a limbo wind and spoke in two languages.