Vitamins for Ygdrasil
by Corey Mesler

  
        for Richard Powers


They’re feeding vitamins to Ygdrasil,
our giant oak, bringing her
back to life after a touch of
the root rot.
Virginia creeper and poison ivy set
up shop around her massive
ankles. While up above 
an ecosystem of squirrels and birds
and insects blossomed
like the first day. Some day, perhaps
toward the end of my allotted time,
I will ascend Ygdrasil,
branch by Halloweeny branch, and
when the top looms near,
knocking on Heaven’s door,
I will keep on climbing
and vanish like a tale that’s been told.

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Corey Mesler has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published eleven novels, four short story collections, six full-length poetry collections, and a dozen chapbooks. His novel, Memphis Movie, attracted kind words from Ann Beattie, Peter Coyote, and William Hjorstberg, among others. He’s been nominated for the Pushcart many times, and three of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He also wrote the screenplay for We Go On, which won The Memphis Film Prize in 2017. With his wife he runs Burke’s Book Store (est. 1875) in Memphis.