Walking into town one afternoon
I passed a wizard on the way
Holding a branch in his hand
Like a magic wand.

“Look!” he said, stopping along the path.
“Yes,” rather nonchalantly, I replied,
“I see you have found yourself a stick…”
“No, look!” he insisted. “Don’t you see?”

At first I thought he was joking
Or trying to play some sort of trick,
But then suddenly, in the blink of an eye,
The dead branch came alive!

A gnarled & knotty insect
That was only pretending to be a stick
Awkwardly walked off
Like a slow-motion man-on-stilts…

Completing the spectacle,
This fantastic metamorphosis
Lengthened into shadow
Inching along my waking brain…

Like a revelation, like the dream
A eucalyptus tree might have
Of becoming the stick-figure of a man
Climbing into the light.