Static Friction

I’m quite offended

by a tree that refuses to grow.

Placed squarely in the midst of a quiet caricature

that hangs, framed, in this rigid life,

as the singular people travel their chosen axes.

I feel like I’ve been sitting here, staring,

for a thousand years,

watching characters on a set,

and a tree that refuses to grow.

Through the aluminum brace,

cars traverse an immortal painting, as lines

of a sketch done upon an amber papyrus

with the sun bleeding forth like a pierced egg yolk,

and a tree that refuses to grow.

Because despite the dynamic vibrations

splashing through this glowing screen,

or the hum of children

slowly hardening like dry concrete,

There is a tree that refuses to grow,

and it is more alive than the best of us.

If I were to believe,

I’d believe that they believed in the tree.

But people either scorn the dead or worship them.

Out there is a tree that refuses to grow,

and I will pay it homage if no one else will.

This winding road houses a thousand faces, all with places to be,

Trapped in a twilight state between coming and going.

And I, nameless among their ranks,

am awestruck by a tree that refuses to grow.

Perhaps the idea of stasis is too inconceivable

for me to consider stopping

Or

Perhaps the world is too irrationally restless

to ever learn to be still.

All I know is that I’m offended

by a tree that refuses to grow.