The Tree is a Journey
The tree is a journey not quite taken
in three different times. The boy
is a mesh waiting to filter volumes
of water far away in the upland hills.
The tree is a beggar who’s risen
to untold prosperity through no fault
of his own. The boy is a sarcophagus
housing artifacts of slave ships:
whips, chains, remnants of beams that continue
to decay. The tree would like to melt
this catalog of snow at its own pace.
The boy’s life is a tangle of udon,
steamy hot before the finishing then
a stroll along the Amazon on the coolest
day of its year. The tree is an amalgam
of fine hats that no one will ever wear.
The boy is a prairie as far as the eye can
see riddled with the joys of gophers.
The tree can never be a candle and the boy
can never go home. The tree is a parade
down a village street celebrating
a long forgotten holiday. The boy
is not the wind, but could be
its incipient possibility. The tree
has never seen smoke; the boy, pavement.
The tree knows evening only as contemplation.
The boy builds slowly a wren made of glass
that might perch in it and not obscure
the remaining light. Without the boy
curled and sleeping lightly, leaning
against the tree trunk’s vast calligraphy, there is no tree.
There is no boy. There is just a boy.