husk

What's in a husk but another husk, and a husk within a husk, an infinitude of husks? What's in a crabapple, shriveled on top and oozing from a sore on its side? Rot, flesh liquifying back to formlessness, seeds which have forgotten their purpose as decay overtakes them. What's in a tree strung with a thousand crabapples, all too weak to hold on longer, all ready to let go their proud identities and merge with the mud? What's left for grass smothered under a shroud of paling leaves? What's left for the leaves, dead as paper, but to dry into shreds and fragment to dust? What's left for these last black birds but to join together and rise with the snuffling wind - dark dust-storms blown to the promising south? What's a sky where clouds greenish gray as pus, ooze from horizon to horizon, to seal in the earth? a husk within a husk, and a thousand husks fallen to the soil of a husk.