VENERABLE ELM
with outstretched limbs
convener and celebrant of
every everyday breeze disheveling your shade,
rocked by amber thought, syrup flung
in stringy yarn toward
carved scars, torn stems, the needlepoint of stars;
gulping ground whiskey, drunk in the sun, enacting quaking poses
and slurred susurrus that attracts
busybody birds; provender to
rooters above and below, raccoons and moles
and beetles and ants attuned to
your whiplash scenes and spooky phases, plus
woodpeckers rattling inside in
red rages; shaking ferny fists at this,
a cascade of plenty
scraping my camo vest,
O multitude of one,
Lakota
dancer stilled
by a light-
ning hit,
shedding
shreds of
the ages,
its proof
incised in
your rings,
now I, chain
saw crying
blue as Sep-
tember sky,
I must dis-
member
you.
__________________
Larry Woiwode