Some Trees I’ve Seen (poems)

We start with a tree.

The plane tree in the parking lot bowed under the weight of the buildings, held up by netting.

The fig tree in my hometown planted (in 1876) by a girl given a seed by a sailor. Its huge boughs bend to the ground, casting shade for humans without houses.

The palm tree D. planted in her yard long ago. And the yard belongs to her no more, therefore the tree.

A few blocks from this room, the towering beech so beloved by C., friend of D.

The enormous árbol de tule in Oaxaca, whose trunk I once stood by, and there is an image of C. with that and other trees, in face-framing leaves. The evidence is a picture. This poet loved to take photos with trees. Schoolchildren will show you the jaguars and gods in the bark-swirls.

Tell me a tree story, she said.