The Trees Lack the Energy to Grow

​So the trees lack the energy to grow.
The chlorophyll is sluggish. Then
The rats multiply, they swarm
Across the forest floor, gen-

Erations after generations, and
They breed disease, the sleeping
Illness, the will to death, 
And that transmutes, creeping

Across the forest floor, infecting
The air and songbirds with anger
And with pride, envy, hate,
And more, all draped in languor.

The river gives its might
To the aquifer, and the river
Banks are steep, brown and slick.
When the aquifer doesn’t shiver

In its thirsty black corridors
But flows robust, the river
Races, tumbles, flows elegantly,
The sunbeams on its ripples quiver,

The trout hurl their slim, muscled
Bodies, straining upstream,
The dragonfly dart, a tributary
Floats the eggs of the bream.

Everything is clear, nothing
Is weighted down, no leaf,
No stamen cries for attention,
No fallen, sealed pine cone is chief

Among the others. Sap
Crystallizes crazy white,
In the afternoon everything
After the rain. The flight

Of the damselflies, the wren
Chirping, the screech
Of the crow, a gust releases
A shower from the leaves of the beech,

It inspires the hammering of a red-headed
Woodpecker. When the flesh is weak,
A person drags artificial colors,
Drenched photos, each a freak, 

His spirit swells, his pores black,
His forehead wrinkled and puffed,
His eyes are blank of any memory
Of sunshine, he has sloughed

Away bright colors, songbirds
And wildcats roaming the north
Woods, the subtle and tender
Grasses, pale lichen, forgotten. Henceforth,

The plague spreads from a tree
To a forest. Poor, dejected
Hills, stuffing themselves 
Because they feel so disrespected,

Flinging up false trees, false
Bugs and birds, protrusions
Granite streaked green and rust.
Thank goodness, beside these bleak delusions

The sap still slowly seeps in
The maple tree. Still, the sad
Sigh of the first rough winds, 
A wind that blew from Bagdad,

That wound its way from the Pleiades,
Requires a wind that will blow
Through the cirrus clouds, that 
Will make the star fields glow,

That will ruffle the tail of the crow,
That will stagger the light till
The field and the river yield
Their fruit and the grain flows from the mill.