Old girl, give me some of thy wood, and I will give thee some of mine when I grow into a tree.

We walked up to the elder tree,
covered it with a broad cloth
to blind it, then cut it off
at the trunk's base. We
walked home, lumbering
over root-crowns in the forest,
our shoulders aching;
a vixen scream startled our troop;
three of us dropped
the prize and rushed off,
drawing our bows so that the string
combed back our beards
and our muzzles were revealed.
One snarled, the other
two smirked and waited; when
the bow-shot went off, there
was a high wind, and we lost
track of the stream. The fox,
struck and limping, slinked
behind a rotting oak's body
and fell. We left it there with
the limbs contorted: one of us,
the youngest of our band,
said it was a bad omen. So
we returned to the severed elder,
hung the thing at our hips
like a compass needle;
when lightning
lit the grey sky, ghosting
our faces, we went stock-still
and dropped it where we stood.