Taught by Trees

Cloistered
with my little calumnies,
i am an arch-villain.

My sins
throw the world
from its orbit;
my loose lips
sink ships
laden
with wisdom,
ships bound
for my shores
with a cargo
of glory.

Passing
from cube
to cube,
i become
a cube,
built to contain
all that is not
worth containing,
bent on completing
that which is never
finished.

Then, i go outside.

A winter wind
atomizes the rain,
punishes my eyeballs
for the gift of sight,
hurls coffee cups,
rolls trash can lids.

The detritus
of humanity
is whisked away.

But the evergreens,
bending and sighing,
even in a gale,
clearly love
being trees.

Puddles shiver and dance.
Boughs and bushes
writhe
in ecstasy
at the effortlessness
of the struggle
to exist.

That pure Nature
Of being,
to which
we once subscribed,
is their sap,
their soul.

When,
returning from
the blasted heath,
my cheeks aflame
with cold,
i revisit
my manifold
iniquities,

they are tiny,
brittle,
edible:
seed
for birds of blame
to gather and sow
in other,
darker fields.

--Mr. Gobley