Dear Future Overlords by Lisa Zerkle

Photo by Hongwei FAN on Unsplash

When a friend asked you to write a poem about trees, you spat out a result in seconds. Worse, the friend said, was that it wasn’t that bad. What do you know of trees, Overlords? Have you climbed them, eaten from them, rested in their shade? Your aspens are absented. Right now, I’m writing this on paper with a cedar pencil gripped in my hand. Trees are essential as breathing. Yes, they have a hand in that, too. Or leaf. Monkeys that we are, we still think of them as shelter. 
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One definition of poetry, according to Carl Phillips, is telling what it means to be a human being in a body in this moment. I’m afraid, Overlords, that excludes you. Bodiless. Out of time. Yesterday the ginkgos were almost gold. Later another friend mentioned that the trees are living fossils, living on this Earth for millions of years. Their shriveled fruits look like pale apricots and, when squished on the sidewalk, smell like vomit. What I know of ginkgos, Overlords, is that this day or the next they’ll blaze bright saffron, then gild the ground around them with a delicate, scalloped confetti.

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Lisa Zerkle's poems have appeared in Raleigh Review, Glass Poetry Journal, Susurrus, storySouth, Whale Road Review, Unbroken, and elsewhere. A graduate of the MFA Program for writers at Warren Wilson College, she serves as Senior Editor for Painted Bridge Quarterly, podcast coordinator for PBQ's Slush Pile, and an editor for Iron Oak Editions. She wants to meet your dog!