Sunday, April 30, 2023


 


killing two trees


not a lumberjack, no

not even an arborist

I spent a day

a full day limbing two trees,

pretending the lie of pruning.


in the eighteenth century

(the age of reason, we're told)

a guillotined head

would thunk

thickly into the merciful basket.

the eyes, for a second, two,

still bound unreasonably to the

world,

would scan quickly

with the finest wonder.


the tree turned away

from the giving sky

and shsh'd to the ground.

it hit the earth like a giant's fist.

how could a sound be so loud?


it shivered then, supine.

a thousand twigs whip the air,

a thousand whispered accusations.

the stillness came at last,

the air so slow, so slow to mend.


and then I saw

what I'd seen before:

a color not Linnaean,

a green untold, 

a mottled gold

climbing the length

of the downed trunk.

climbing no more; now lost.


now lost.


9/30/2021

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