Trees, No Trees, Tree
by Wanda Schubmehl

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees
blooming, consumed by fire, fallen. Night
after night, I found myself in forests,
wind shiver, rain feast, sap. I hid in trees,
held onto trunks through mighty storms,
crept to the twigs at the top of the canopy.
Some nights I was a tree, bark-encircled,
insect-carved, birdnested. Other nights
I dreamed of trees vanished, an earth
untreed, dreaming of trees within a dream
of their annihilation,

dreaming of God,
disheartened, making another tree, setting it
out in the soil of a far, far planet.


 

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