Reading My Poem "Fresh Tree" for Earth Day 2020

Go to our Local Ventura Poet's Group on Youtube to watch and listen to me read this poem, "Fresh Tree" from my book of poems, Dead Tree Elegies (available in my website bookstore).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItMX6hQeyrw

Fresh Tree

We won the lottery—cone, nut, sprout, root

drilling down to damper depths,

without contaminations, deprivations.

I might be sipping near a wedged stone,

or alongside a thin crevice with weepy faces.

No bird has stuck me with rank seed of mistletoe.

Tree sprouts nearby aid me.

My scaffolds are out, framework set.

I’d be best pruned, limbed up, fire skirted,

still, I’ve made a start.

Summer grinds on, our only season.

Heat settles in and won’t let go.

But I’m free of bushy dangers,

chaparral that would stab me with leafy flames.

I have a chance,

adapting, rather than reviving old tired stuff.

Who knows if I’ve got the molecule

for a heartier needle, more obdurate bark,

marathon breather with lungs of steel,

camel-like in thirst.

I’m tested here, a much bigger lottery:

chancy changes

to meet the drought head on.