Believing in a word carves it out.
Meanwhile, in Gaelic, the alphabet is feminine.
Bards carpenter drums, their songs from branches.
Each tree has a corresponding letter:

O for furze; G for ivy... Still a boy, I hammer 
a tree fort on a white pine’s twisting limbs 
behind my house. There, a hallowed oak
enshrines Mary’s silhouette –

untouched in the clearing. The living
spirit has spoken, blessing this wood: 
do not girdle it, remove its trunk – or 
crops will fail. God chooses when to strike.

Like Daphne ready to set loose herself, another 
oak calls down attention from the heavens –
lightning lashes bark rough, 
wood rings – a stag head courting

the flash. No flash fire. O protector of fields, 
indweller, I understand: as your right 
hand, my words won’t need kindling 
again. You will approve: no one

gives chase when I crack the kid next door 
six times in the nose for touching 
my sister, then run back to this nail-bored 
platform: silent at woods’ edge.