Alder

You are a tree

disguised as a poem.

Can you smell

the first rains of August

licking the dust off

your tired leaves?

Can you feel birds

sharing your branches

with a radical sky?

You are a poem

disguised as a tree.

There you were rooted,

a magnificent alder,

until you gave up your life

to chainsaw and mill

that these words can ramble across

your papery dead body.

J. Pratt-Walter

© 4/12/2019