15 Jan Pinewood

‘As many years I cast them, as many years the forest’s mine,’
So says the voiceless boast of the Florida longleaf pine.

Stirring from the spirits of the morning’s cavalcade
I stare at spinning treetops from where their needles laid.

Wooden men surround the windows of the skies.
Their limbs arranged in ways strange to human eyes.

When life leaves their flesh they tumble to the ground,
Their many years of shedding straw muffles any sound.

Could they plant their feet and burrow through the murky sod?
Their sap like tears stains their skin in confessions to their God.

The last lights crawl upon their budding cones unstalked
As mockingbirds try to speak the language of the hawk

To warn the green down between the corr’dors of trees
That to spread their scales, pines must soon be fire-seized.

With limber hands of daggers, with blood of turpentine,
Wilder lands are wilder by the care-frees of the pine.