Frame of Reference | bonsai by Chris Fillebrown

the doctor of my neurologic
sent me for a magnetoresonant
image of my mind

on my back with my head in a bucket
barely larger than my head
ear plugs snugly twisted between
the rolling index finger and thumb
stuffed in my ears to expand
inside my ear canal to block out
sounds more like a waterfront
than a place of healing

honking horns call respond
as the machine sorts out
a picture of my mind
for the scrutiny of western reason

i closed my eyes
in the dark dull roar of
big machine whirring

the doctor called me later
to let me know
that inside my brain starting low
in the base of my skull
up into my internal sky
blown by moist psychic breeze
grew a little bonsai tree

the tree was small
as bonsai means to be
but very old compared to me
two thousand thirty three
of dark wood
like the fingers of eubie blake
gnarled branches grasping the wind

i asked my doctor how this could be
he shrugged
atlas at the edge of reason
dismissed what he had learned in school
and slipped comfortably into the mystery
of his ancient tribe
to a mystical and smokey place
not science

apparently
my word not his
i had
in some prior version of my self
inhaled a juniper seed that found
a shallow puddle of moist dirt
high up in my rocks of ages
sent down roots
settled there
fed by mud and quenched by misty
mountains crashed by waves

water’s color painted
a splinter of ancient wisdom