'Poem for the week' -- "Ways to Measure Trees":
Level II: Basic Assessment
All my life I was a hammer:
I struck at everything I touched.
Then I commit a few Thursdays
to trees. I am not gentle but I could be.
Around one tree, I try my basic circling
steps, tap the tree’s bark with my mallet
and listen for the difference: alive?
dead? alive? dead? alive? still alive?
I muscle coils of clay and learn
the same lesson again and again–
could be clay trees family trees
literal trees: I hear the precarious things.
I go phone-my-forester asking
about sounding trees, about my ears?
How I want to save a few trees
but don’t understand what I hear.
All my life I swung the wrong things.
I put down mallet and muscle,
circle the tree’s girdling roots
and ask, “Where does it hurt?”
The forester returns my call.
He’s glad he caught me this evening.
He heard what I asked about trees
and ears. “It’s subtle, takes practice.”
-- MaKshya Tolbert
