THE ELM IS REBORN

If I can no longer see myself,
if only my roots survive,
if birds look in vain
for where their nests were
amid the sad absence of my arms,
do not cry for this.

In a Spring silence,
verdant shoots of life will emerge
from the earth like tears.

I will be that horde of adolescents,
that laurel wreath that encircles
the trunk sundered by the axe.

Life multiplied brings death.
Multiple are the rays of dawn.