A Poem for Friday

“Tree”

by E.D. Kain

I can feel it like some dragging tide
or a slope, the green mood sliding back,
slipping toward that thick black cancer,
that sense of decay. Fallen autumn leaves
on a cold summer day. Beneath
my two feet, the colors seep
down into the wet dirt. The pavement
cracks, weeds pushing it apart.
I can see the future of civilization
there in the dandelions.

My toes are roots and I am
a birch, swaying naked. No wind
today, nothing to bring the clouds
but the clouds came; gray slogs slogging
along across the firmament, a high
highway of sky, pavement. Crows
congregating in the buttresses and pavilions
and dumpsters of the world.

I can see tombstones in the tall grass.
But I am a birch and I cannot cross
the lawn.