12-24-2021, 11:26 PM
The Tree’s Question
Is it an awful thing to see a tree
cut off in youth and stood up dead to be
a symbol for your sort tricked out with lights
and ornaments of tortured sand and oil
made plastic, glittering with captive stars
their futile brightness wired in from a site
where earth-gas burns or atoms break and churn
beneath a shingled roof, no sun to grieve
its degradation?
No, you lovely tree.
Is it an awful thing to see a tree
cut off in youth and stood up dead to be
a symbol for your sort tricked out with lights
and ornaments of tortured sand and oil
made plastic, glittering with captive stars
their futile brightness wired in from a site
where earth-gas burns or atoms break and churn
beneath a shingled roof, no sun to grieve
its degradation?
No, you lovely tree.
Non-practicing atheist