The tree without birds
is like a book without vowels
a mind without focus
a heart without tides.
Its limbs remain desolate
in the thick of summer.
It puts out leaves
but forgets to bloom
& its transactions with fungi
are strictly economic,
never lead to any
tempting truffle.
The wind plays it
like a mechanical instrument.
In bluest January
it doesn’t even remember
how to ache.
See Rachel’s response: “Offering.”
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Dog Logic
- The Colors of Noise
- Crossing Wales
- Memo from the CEO of Little Prince, Inc.
- Poems to be shaved into the hair of the author’s back
- Desideratum
- Capture
- Living in Analog
- Organ Meats: A Primer
- Walking Weather
- Beach Glass
- Tree Without Birds
- Hermit
- The Captain’s Reverses
- Pets
- Exchange
- Heart
- Digital
- The Fullness of Time
- Pandora
- Reading the Icelandic Sagas
- Hit the Lights
- Vagina Dialogue
- Helmsman
- Old Norse Family Values
- On Hold
- Heels
- Looking for the Reader
- The conversation continues: two videopoems
Oh but birds are singing here, disturbingly so, as it’s been such a warm winter. What becomes of spring if there is no freeze to thaw?
Good question! (Here, too.)
Makes me think of Wallace Stevens and the searing presence of absent things [I used to like his work a great deal, so I am saying this in admiration]. And yes, we are wondering what happened to winter here too, even the teaser bits of it we used to get.
Thanks, Maria. I have read a little Stevens lately, so possibly that was an influence, but I’ve always loved trying to evoke presence through absense. (See, for example, “Nude.”)
Actually Larry Ayers here, posting from Bev’s Ipad.
I like the concept, and the reference to “transactions with fungi” — there should be more poems which refer to fungal matters! A tempting truffle… I’d like to be slicing paper-thin shavings from one right now!
Glad you liked that. Yeah, I find I can’t really think about forest trees without remembering that they are part of the “wood-wide web.”