Don Kingfisher Campbell

Goodbye Trees

 

That line the large Huntington Drive meridian

Your broccoli tops have delighted my driving eyes

For half a century now your consistent green

Clumps have nourished my travelling mind

Into praying to someday be like one of you

 

I hope to be in your healthy presence again

But presently I must go far from your procession

To reside in rectangles also fifty plus years old

I will envision you as I walk past rocky lawns

Return inside to gaze at carpet and floor tiles

 

Wishing you were just outside standing steadfast

And you are, miles beyond my new neighborhood

Where counted proximates will not reach your height

I will dream as if I was in a movie looking back at

My life spent enjoying experiencing you being alive

 

Like the star child I begin to lie down an old man

Scan the room for familiar sighted resting objects

The table, the chairs, the desk, the bed frame all

Made from your brethren by dexterous ingenuity

To provide place to contemplate through a window

 

What is missing from my daily life observations

My breaths taken invisibly surrounded by walls

Makes me want to fall deep and sink into roots

Transmogrify into arbor for creatures to see and

Meditate in movement while I sway still sentinel

 

I might burst into rainstorm just to feed my fantasy

Of inhaling your verdant petrichor once more

From asphalt band that takes me away from you

To sit, compose what you and I have become, a

Beloved memory enshrined on electronic dead tree