Tree-Hobbyists (And All They Sing to the Birds and Me)

There are stories in the breeze. There are words in the wind.

When I hold my palm out to catch them around my fingertips, I am not alone.

The trees too, are grabbing.

They shake with greed and groan with desperation as they reach out,

clawing like rabid dogs as they take.

The kookaburras nestled in pale leaves startle with laughter as they catch whispers of what has been cobbled together after the hunt.

Those gnarly beings of old can want so boldly, for they fear no unmaking.

They basked as time dawned, exchanged songs with the gales before history even begun its weavings, living not in before and after, only in is.

The needy kiss of death lost its sting aeons ago,
now they revel in its drunken sweet, stealing reprieve from oblivion.

And the trees taunt as they loom limpid like your contrived roadkill and lead,

triumphant as they echo out their newly born hymns

back to the wind, back to the breeze, setting cycles anew.

For they know as surely as martyrs die vainly that nothing could hurt them.

You may flay bark-skin, tear limb-branches to crush underfoot all you like.

Those who are deaf to their eternal poem as you are cannot harm them,

because their rooted soul is buried safe in Mother Earth’s womb,

Safe, for She will not give up Her children to the likes of you.