Dear Tree,

September 14, 2013

Dear Tree,

How heavy are your leaves?

Do the rain drops strengthen you

Like the nutrients from string beans?

How far off in the distance can you see?

If I climb you and peer out into the atmosphere will my curiosity be relieved?

I heard about the dog that was strangled

By a rope tied to your tree trunk. He was

Mangled by the thick bristles,

Trying to get a doggy biscuit from the other side.

He walked around and around; the rope

Wrapped up; and he struggled,

Than he died.

How did you handle your impractical homicide?

Do you remember the swing set

That was attached to your thickest tree branch?

Three out of the four little girls use to take turns pushing each other in to a swinging trance how

could you forget the memories they kept?

How one autumn all the leaves had fallen and turned brown. The three little girls would rack

them up and jump in them until the pile was flattened out.

Then there was that one bad spring when it rained so bad it was raining in our dreams Streams

and streams of a pollinated muckery flooding and washing out houses Happiness and the

weather were like divorcing spouses

Do you remember when the lighting struck?

First went down the swing set

With the thickest branch

Then went down all the remaining leaves

The nutrients weren’t that strengthening

Then your roots detached from the ground

You came peering down

Into the carport.

P.S. Now no one will be able to see the things that you have seen.

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