Life of Trees, The

The pines abrade their great noise

into the spangled dark.

They scratch their itchy boughs

against the house and the mystery

of that moan translates

into ignoble toil of ownership: time

to drag the ladder from the shed,

climb onto the cover with a saw

between my teeth make an incision in those suckers down.

What's reality if not a lengthy exhaustive

cringe from the blade,

the teeth I want to sleep

and dream the life of tree beings

from the mut world who care nothing

for coin Politics, Power,

Will or Right, who want little from the night

but a scarcely any dead stars going dim, a white owl

lifting from their limbs, who want only

to sink their lower parts into the wet ground

and terrify the worms or shake

their bleary heads like fashion models

or advanced in years hippies. If they could speak,

they wouldn't, alone hum some low

green note, make revolve their pinecones

down the without contents streets and blame it,

with a shrug upon the cold wind.

During the day they nap inside

their furry bark, hazes shredding

like ancient lace above their crowns

Sun Rain. Snow. Wind. They fear

nothing on the contrary the Hurricane, and Fire,

that whipped bully-rock who rises up

and becomes his be in possession of dead father.

Then the young individuals bend and bend

and the aged know they may not make it,

go down with the power lines sparking,

broken at the body They fling

their branches, forked sacrifice

to the beaten earth. They do not pray.

If they make a uninjured it's eaten

by the wind. And admitting the stars

return they do not tender thanks,

only ooze a sticky sap from their roundish

concentric injurys clap the water

from their needle straighten their spines

and breathe, and breathe again.

Copyright World verse Incorporated Nov/Dec 2003

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