Hardwood Visions
i
see a great migration of forests,
the maple of Blue Mountain
disappearing like ice.
forests
like languages dug up with their
bits of sad cloth.
from
their beds, vast forests taken––
never heard from again.
hardwood
dreams, shot in the head at close range.
roots
crammed in footlockers packed with acid snow.
forests
climbing high over crags of Emptiness.
raspy-breath’d tall trees––ill in darkness,
sweating profusely.
forests
like deer crossing Long Lake.
leafbuds heavy with soot where
they fell with a sigh.
i see their hands
burned to ashes.
i see their trails
vanishing into tomorrow.
12 March 1992
[Published in Grasslands.
© 1994 by Jim
Cohn.]
