In medio ramos annosaque brachia pandit ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia vulgo vana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus haerent.
Book VI, 282-284
In the middle, a shady elm spreads branches and aged arms, immense, shelters which people call “vain dreams,” bearing them under every leaf.
More leaves, this time sheltering false dreams. The Sybil writes her visions on leaves, the leaves of this tree bear visions that won’t come true. I have to think of poor Polydorus, who was betrayed and killed, and in decomposition becomes a myrtle bush. Aeneid stumbles upon him in Book III, pulling his branches for an altar. In Canto XII of the Inferno, suicides become trees that bleed like Polydorus. Are the leaves of my intuition true or false? Intuition is intention; we want what we know. Recalling my failed intuitions is like pulling the leaves off that bleeding tree.
Roger Valdez 