There’s a reason Greek has a vocative case: any thorn in flesh you can find; rocks pitted against high tide. You decide, then mind the pits, poison, or bitter taste of the olive’s uncured flesh. A metaphor, perhaps, and to be expected, or expunged depending on the context. It’s not that fruit isn’t possible at this moment, it’s just unlikely. Perhaps winter. Perhaps a blight of unknown origins: pathogenic organism; the blind white chlorosis of fungi. I don’t mean to explain these things. I stand only as a farmer of men. My path took roads with no soil to speak of, so I leave this tree with you. My chains keep me here, rooted, a moment blind. Forgive this crude hand. It speaks only in looped alphas, or alephs—if we must—which always seem to find the day’s last, silent light.