Hiding beneath a blanket of daylight,
I hear them.
They don't know I'm here,
a human buried in their presence,
listening to them hum their language of old
twisted tongue and the wind whistling
between their teeth.
The sun's rays move around their bodies,
and they titter at the thought of being
draped in robes of solar power.
They imagine the bugs crawling
on their limbs are pets,
giving them names to dote upon,
the birds are their friends,
the fox slinking nearby
a stranger.
The trees entertain
the idea of humans,
the same way we humor the view of a dog.
But beneath that, a hint of loathing,
a whisper of war in their hearts.
We have killed too many of them,
their kind cut in half
as we cut them with axes.
To be a tree is to be ethereal,
but it is to also be endangered.
A bug flies up my nose,
and I sneeze.
The forest falls silent
as it always is,
but I heard the trees talk.
I did.
I hear them.
They don't know I'm here,
a human buried in their presence,
listening to them hum their language of old
twisted tongue and the wind whistling
between their teeth.
The sun's rays move around their bodies,
and they titter at the thought of being
draped in robes of solar power.
They imagine the bugs crawling
on their limbs are pets,
giving them names to dote upon,
the birds are their friends,
the fox slinking nearby
a stranger.
The trees entertain
the idea of humans,
the same way we humor the view of a dog.
But beneath that, a hint of loathing,
a whisper of war in their hearts.
We have killed too many of them,
their kind cut in half
as we cut them with axes.
To be a tree is to be ethereal,
but it is to also be endangered.
A bug flies up my nose,
and I sneeze.
The forest falls silent
as it always is,
but I heard the trees talk.
I did.
- k.daigle's blog
- Sprout
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ShanRippWriting
Sep 04, 2019
I love how this is written in lines of two. It drives the poem forward and gives the right amount of attention to each line and word, which is wonderful, as this poem is lovely.
Shannon Ripp