There’s an oak at the city park
where I have to bend my neck
all the way back to see its tops branches.

Lichens line up from roots to leaves,
woven into the bark, bifurcating limbs
lacing and layering shades of lobed green bodies,

so there’s no separating them from the
substrate of another living thing.
These masses built on symbiosis between

algae and fungi building homes in the shadows,
masquerading as part of bigger being,
a coalition of hidden life.