Tree Surgeon

Please do not harm my trees.
I have given up on all but trees;
They are the only thing I
Desire to save.

The fragmented nature
Of the modern world
Is never more mysterious
Than in a yard absent of trees,

Which are like great periscopes
Into the past.
A big blooming broom bush
When the morning sun strikes it

Is not nearly as luscious
As the Siberian larch
When wounded
In winter. I consider

Landowners as carriers
And I am very careful
When shaking hands
That they do not make me sick.

I haunt the earth, which is
A fingernail stripe
On medium grit sandpaper;
We all wake to wander

Through a house renovation
That’s never near completion.
We’re little statuettes,
Desperate little renderings

Of a world that never stops swaying,
Looking for keys in the trash
And finding them instead
Woven in a bird’s nest.

In the ditch the man
In charge of mowing
Down the meadow
Puts his palms on my saw,

And I acupuncture his neck
With pine needles.
This is my only kindness,
But to tend to trees,

Stronger and with so many fruits
And nuts and tenets,
With so many whispering leaves
With more limbs than even Shiva.