Poem-A-Day #160 : Wood (Part 7 : Focus)

Long poem. You can read Part One HERE.


Wood (Part 7 : Focus)

I drove up the mountain once in 2004 and I cried into the trees : I parked my car along the side of the road and I climbed an embankment and I got covered in mud and then I walked until I got to a fallen tree and I collapsed on the ground and screamed : I screamed until I was hoarse and my eyes were red with tears and I couldn't make any noise :

It was this place that we are now in : the fallen place : the tree was large and ashen its roots shot into the air twice my height clinging to dirt and rock : I wanted to touch them but like the fear of a dead body felt I must stand a distance and stare into them : they spiraled like mandala and nebulae they were fingers reaching for nothing they were dead relatives :

And I wanted to put it back up : I stood in the hole where it did the earth had already closed behind rejected it like a foreign body like the cat claw in my shoulder when I was twelve like the dirt in your eye after a dust storm : what happens to a body re-stood : there are the people of Sulawesi who bring out their dead clean them reclothe them take them for walks to meet their relatives and friends :

Manhattanhenge 2001

Neil deGrasse Tyson

And I hold the picture frame and I want to re-glass it to find a way to put the pictures right within its hold and I am imagining myself raising the dead like some wizard in Dungeons and Dragons and I am afraid of this idea : I use the broom with the wood handle to sweep debris into a dustpan made of clear plastic the trash can takes these tokens willingly :

I dream about peeling back the colonization of America : taking it all down to bedrock before allowing the earth to re-soil anything : a sort of sowing the land with salt and demanding none will live here : imagine every place bare of people of buildings of anything : nihilism was never my strength and I am sure we can agree that soilless land is dangerous :

But think of the re-growth that could happen : here is a seedpod from a tree you can decide what kind it is : imagine it going into untouched soil : imagine the pristine new forest that would erupt from the earth so violently : this is as close to hippy bull shit I am going to get so eat it up because I am about to contradict myself :

Buildings are a sort of forest aren't they : suppose that what we plant only begets glass and metal : is this place the forest that we planted already showing itself in fruit : hold my hand I don't like the idea of cities being the end game of nature but it's hard to refute the present it is all we have : I wanted to clean this up a bit focus etc. but maybe sloppy is ok :