Sarah Cave, wearing (cassocks)

                Slava Tree, image by by Irene Koronas  

wearing (cassocks)

Trees state
ecologists, seen
illegally wearing
(cassocks),
will bring the bear
Seraphim fed  
to factory natural
value Eastern
forest whereas distant
parliament commands
land approval earth yoke
to spill across worn
haircloth landscape

Giant Slava Spruces seek loan
of traditional nuns for plantation
a forest neck proposal to officials
who keep their branches blessed
and virtuous outer trees stylized
a letter – remarking ‘you’re not
using them, let them be of use’

bark strips sold off need counsel

a Moscow-bearer delivers returns
wooden priests    
                       their faces stripped

Wooden priests

make difficult
clerics symbolic
destruction
of Bishop’s 
embroidered

mitre
proclaimed
endangered
by metre

Monks bestow a private
previous company
deacons deliver their
wordless decrees
their covered shoulders
create private profit
Slava wears his cobbled
law hat, an important cowl
that reveals no more than
20% of his religious neck
ready to be scrutinised
by bureaucrats

Slava fells nuns

recalls encounters
Boris fixed the focus
on the tree line
the country’s canopy
white noise above
the hidden places
where winter
sports are exported

—Sarah Cave