The Forest of the Stylites
by Scott Cairns
Feast of the Commemoration of the Miracle Wrought by Archangel Michael in Colossae
Anno Domini 2020, September 6
—for Warren Farha
The way had become unbearably slow, progress
imperceptible. Even his hunger had become
less, little more than a poorly remembered myth
of never quite grasped significance. And the field
he now glimpsed far ahead as a failed
forest whose cedars—bleached and branchless—clearly reached
past the edge of his sight. Occasional, erratic
movement at the tops of a few distant trees spun
his bearings some, induced brief vertigo, recalled
to him his hunger, if as a wave of nausea,
which abated, then poured back as he drew near and the trees
transformed to pillars, each topped by an enormous
weathered flightless bird enshrouded in a rag.
*Originally published in Scott Cairns, Recovered Body
(New York: George Braziller Publisher, 1998), p. 59. Reprinted by Eighth Day Books.
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