Tree

A Poem

i think i am a tree

i mean to say
that there are rings 
that prove the
lives i’ve lived

and at the sticky
sap-centered
liquid memory
my heart

and the fruit of my branches
plucked bare by
hungry 
greedy 
reaching
hands

hands that chop me down
make homes of me
feed me through the chipper
write love letters on me

i think i am a tree
the very oxygen you breathe
and yes
i can sustain
the earth 
with my weather-worn
sun-dappled limbs
while being devoured 

without consent

Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin – On the edge of a pine forest in 1882