rise long and slender
from the needle-strewn earth
his pinky sways close to our tiny home and
we don’t want to die in bed.
It isn’t whimsy or the need for a
big sky, that keeps us up at night.
Last month, an old maple sheared
off the wall of our shed.
In his palm I wish to rest but
a black gooey stigmata pools there.
Sixteen-feet closer where I was told he lives
his fingers open into two crisp peace symbols—
nothing goes out of fashion in his open air closet.
Later this week a pig farmer will come over and chain saw
the bottom while I pull a cable halfway from the top in his bouncy tractor.
The whole morning I’ll apologize for the song of grief called “technology.”
In the falling trees’ earth-shaking echo I’ll have my Hercules moment,
suspicious that its’ shadow will overtake me.
I’m told, a trees’ roots are twice its’ canopy.
If so, there’s a whole world
I’ll have to beg forgiveness from
when I go down.
