I am tree

silhouette in winter

redbud harbinger of spring

blossoming crabapple on the meadow’s edge

full figured summer – my harvest

sweet summer pears and hard tart quince

I am locust posts anchoring fences

hickory canes steadying walkers

limbs embracing children’s swings

               How do you like to go up in a swing, 

             Up in the air so blue? 

my age is measured in rings

I draw lightening

I dislike old saws

I harvest strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

bloom an allee of magnolia grandiflora

I am not tree

no ancestors ancient as centenarian oaks

no redwoods and sequoias measuring

height by closeness to the moon

no capacity for photosynthesis

or removing carbon dioxide from the air

I can be transplanted if care is taken

my cambium layer delicate, fragile

I do not stop long enough to grow moss

on my northern side

I cannot be turned into legs of a Stickley table

or milled for Amish barn siding

I have no leaves to hold up the stars

At death the tree and I become one

in a box of plain wood comforted

by moist earth and the rains of spring.          

Eve Hoffman grew up on a Georgia dairy farm, loves dirt roads and Guernsey cream. She’s been called a provocateur, and been honored as a Remarkable Woman by her alma mater Smith College. Full-length poetry book Memory & Complicity, Mercer University Press, 2018 nominated for Georgia poetry book of the year. Chapbooks Red Clay and SHE.  A Celebration of Healing— stories of twenty models whose lives have been impacted by breast cancer to accompany Sal Brownfield’s 5’ x 4’ oil painting of each model. evehoffmanpoet.com