Trees...
...I heard you last night sighing
long and mournfully your tops
swaying in the wind gusts
tapping each other at times
making snapping cracking sounds
as your newly young spring-stiff limbs
touched met and none of you
the worse for it.
I heard you through my window
open always despite the cold
and wondered again what it was
you were sighing about or do I
even need to ask when at dawn or
nearly so I creep from my bed again
toward a light that flashes as faces
and arbitrary dictums in
my still-dark early-morning living room
that hasn't seen the light of day yet.
The faces don't care what time it is
there is no curtain dropping nor anthem
playing to a snowy screen at 11 p.m. anymore
hasn't been for a very long time now so
things come at us always from all sides no end to it
lives shattered and worlds tilted in
the wee hours no regard for the rest we need
respite from a horror not possible
back there among you.
So when I've taken all I can I crawl back
weary to my bed pull the curtain aside
to see your tops still swaying hear
your entish sighs unceasing you
who make sense who stand resigned who
render the word ugly irrelevant because
it simply does not exist in your world
as it does in mine or perhaps as mere
shadows that you dismiss summarily
at dawn.
