This tree rises on its roots like a singing bird

Kelley White

1. look, here are sticks that blossom

2. a leaf

3. last year I spoke here to the young owls and offered them a bowl of small fishes

4. they cried out, and I raised my cry to them

 

5. frozen dancing trees

6. will you remember to dress in leaves?

7. that is just a mourning dove

8. at last I will see a single new pine cone

9. all of the days are cold

 

10. the sky grays

11. listen, a heavy whine

12. why have the owls abandoned their perfect tree?

 

13. I wear my cloak of skunks, of chipmunk, of owl, of foxes

14. so many have prepared bonfires of sticks

 

15. why did the birches fall so uniformly?

16. what wind? what ice? what snow?

17. like a stinging moth

18. nothing lives here

 

19. an uprooted tree dances upon stones

20. like the meadow’s bones

21. moss lichen lichen stone stone stone

 

22. I nearly fall

23. I slip on dead leaves

24. a ladder of twigs

25. more holes drilled to fresh wood

26. why don’t I see the owl?

 

27. the divisions of stone