if the trees

i wrote prayers and burned
negative thoughts and
buried the ashes in the park
i fear the winter
but in my mind i feel the
cold hard dirt at the base
of trees as the roots burrow
down into their system

my mind doesn’t hold on to
seasons the trees in their bareness
the grass sparse and frosted
the lush decadence of
summer where the outgrowth
is so much it stinks of death

i dream of being someone else
who follows the moon
who heeds the call of ground and tree
who wonders at the world

i used to be a hovering mind
working the body down step by step
it’s always separation even
as i hear my clomp on the pavement

inside i am belly gurgles
and not knowing what to do
or where even to sit

i used to hear my breath not
hold it in always on a precipice
the curled fist of my body
blotting out sound of bird and tree

is the pleasure of air
even cold but a blanket
morally better than to swathe
myself in a book and bed

whose morality do i carry
that tells me my duty is to
be outdoors so as to
conflict with demand of work

not morality but freedom
where the air expands and
i can’t hold my breath as
chest expands dissolves into
empty sky and withered branch

or the fear of bursting open
keeps me huddled tight
crunching all my muscles so
world won’t tear me apart

fear and morality such cruel
ways to order the world like
the grid that promises to tame
my scrawl into legibility

but something rebels and
my letters slide into scribble
and still twist on my hatred
of self and world

if i accept containment
i can rail against it
and find fault in myself
for not committing the crime

on this side of transgression
i gain vicariousness
knowledge as sight
without setting foot

i know what goes on in
the sparse planted forests
of my park and so
i don’t need to go out there

world weary seen it but not
done it or done it too much
so that I am there again
asking why

the hovering mind who broods
over sentences or removes
itself from body and companion
out of pride and selfhatred

the fear of failure is the
fear of success and I’ve never
decided which is worse
and i don’t know if the trees
will tell me so