OpenLinkNight: wHor-to-culture, the science of plant cultivation

What does love look like in the fall,
when all the leaves are gone
& bare trees
raise arms to grey skies,
finding a white cold sun?

Do we rake leaves in piles,
smoldering pyres to what once was,
mourning?

Or duct tape them back to limbs in pale
pantomime to fairer seasons, pretending
the mockery, our reality?

Take axe to the tree, cut, Cut, CuT
reducing it to kindling, feigned re-kindling
so that it might once more
warm or be useful

for something?

Clear cut the way to thrust a new planting
in fertile soil?

Fools rape the land for their own profit
while sap still runs, deep maybe, yet---

Press your ear to the tree's chest, explore
again the textured skin with bold,
gentle touch, circle round each stiff knot,
climb to its heights as you did
& nest in its boughs, dream together blue skies
under the clouds, speak and then speak more,
each ring earned inside tells a story,
let them enter your ear
in groaning utterance---

still
the mad chainsaws GroooWL

what is love?

Far greater have tried to define,
but this, that this tree might be read and
re-read, a book, until framed in ink stained
fingerprints, pen never resting
in its writing.

OpenLinkNight @dVerse Poets - come sit, listen to the words of poets from around the world. bring your own. share. We are poets. Hosted tonight by the marvelous Claudia Schoenfeld.