Adult Poetry - Second Place

Nothing is lost.
Energy and matter in repeating
patterns pulse through time.
The maiden holds the birch tree
in her flesh and bone:
atoms of carbon from white bark,
the energy of sun-soaked birch
leaves warm her lifted arms
in the chill lake breeze.
Copper locks held back
let birch-leaf music
rustle past her ear,
shiver down her spine.
Her spine: the bone tree
running up her back
pinned upright:
from matter and energy,
to matter allowing energy.
The scarred tracks of the surgeon's
knife hardened over
like frost cracks in bark,
thick yet as strong as
the cambium spine the young birch
has built cell by cell.
The miracle of shaping plant
life from sun and water,
becomes the miracle of shaping
flesh from plant life and water.
In this yearning upward
from the sun,
to the sun, repeated yet unique,
nothing is lost.