An Elegy for Uprooted Trees There is no apology for your death No escape of the truth crushed under your limbs & body Once solid and swaying in the wind with a resilience thousands of years old Now, you lie in the street, on the sidewalk reality spilling red on gray cement They wrap police tape around your private wake to quarantine you like you’ve been overcome with Dutch Elm’s disease the viewing of your body only seen from a distance as if you pose a threat as if there is something to cover up There is something to cover up and they will go to great lengths to shield it There will be no guest book for your mourners to sign instead they will write on the sidewalks with footprints & spray paint as if your death prompted a petition for justice that the last dead trees assassination did not garner Their voices will swim through tear gas and rubber bullets as the world of bystanders will look in disbelief as the “news” is packed into 3 minute segments to provide the public with “all the details” Speculations swirl, around your crown like vultures over road kill Accusations justify your passing while you have not been allowed the privilege to speak or live You decompose as they tower over you and mill around standing on the curb eating donuts and gulping coffee a dead tree cannot whisper or shout a thousand dead trees cannot whisper or shout Who do you suppose should do the shouting? The birds chirp and squawk, self-absorbed by their own fear and they should be afraid but their fear is getting in the way of their flight the forest is being infected by something you’d think a tree would never know disregard, disenfranchisement, dissociation, dismemberment, disease, discord and part of this woodland is burning, lungs filled with smoke, choking on their own breath while other trees stand in watch, oblivious to their immunity One’s roots jut into the sky like the arms of a child in need of a mother’s love and the ground beneath, poisoned by pesticides and the pestilence born of hate work in progress 9/11/14
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 22:20:12 +0000