Silva Candida in Arbore

KING of the Shining Wood, and the apex of the Arbor. Where the lone tree once stood sentinel and burning at the lip of the abyss in the reddening, and before the Sister takes him under blue, here he comes to his full height and his crown: the one tree that is a whole forest, the Gleaming Wood gathered out of the many into a single body, holding all that white light in one head. He appeareth as an elder of the canopy standing apart in a clearing, his limbs black and bare and ancient at the center, his foliage white as hoarfrost at every reaching tip, the dark old wood and the shining leaf bound in one figure, the king and the crown he wears. His office is to show the Arbor sovereign at his apex: neither burning at the edge nor drowned beneath the flood, but standing whole and white at the crest between them, the living leaf that throws back the hidden light entire and the old limb that bears it up. The white clouds gather behind him as if to greet kin, for they are of the same light, and they come now to a king.