 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. 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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 Image via Joe Dudeck on Unsplash after Special Field Orders No. 15, 1865 You won't need no reparations · though you deserve them · just $100 every month · invested wisely · nothing risky · slow and steady wins the race · $100 every month · when you turn 18 even 21 · Let it ride and you won't need · to plow behind some jackass · you won't need to plant nobody's cotton · nobody's tobacco · you won't need to scrub nobody's floor · or work three jobs when you’re old · work yourself to death · $100 every month · when you're 18 even 21 · Let it ride · nothing risky · slow and steady wins this race ·set it and forget it · automate your own reparations · They don't teach you that in school · we're not supposed to win · supposed to stay silent soulless · cogs in the machine · You won’t cower sittin’ on FU money · three million · hate the player · don't hate the game · Learn the rules · Learn to win · $100 every month · $25 every week · when you're 18 even 21 · invested wisely · nothing risky · slow and steady wins this race · you won't need no reparations · you won't need 40 acres · and a dusty mule · We waited 150 · years for something that ain't coming · in the meantime · grow rich slowly · don't let them see you stack your bills · don't flaunt your wealth · The powers-that-be will scare · change it up · make it harder · Stealth wealth · is what you want · for yourself · for your children · teach them $100 every month at 18 even 21 · yields millions · so when their muscles ache · arthritic joints inflamed · brittle bones tire of working · they can sit a spell · rock on a porch · like every-tired-body else · Just $100 every month · start at 18 or even 21.
 Image via Lukas Stoermer Dawn starts at ground level, offering the same soft promise, but new. The near trees pull their limbs out of the dark. The ones in the distance hold the few lights of town like fallen stars. Now the brake lights of the school bus flicker down the dirt road through the trees. No mist today. No rain. No lies yet. Now darker gray streaks the charcoal sky. To sit and watch shouldn’t be hard. Is that a glimmer of frost on the dried milkweed in the field? A crow taking advantage of the whole sky? A hunter firing shots at any available prey? An hour passes as more light arrives. Now sunlight grazes the crown of the tallest oak, its leaves muddy brown, but still bright against the brightening sky.
 Image via Jason Mavrommatis A Haibun Sunset. A quiet, perfumed name for the end of something that should scream. When the last one came, it did not simply close the sky, it took something with it. We stood there, watching, and someone whispered, “Why now?” Why wait until the fire is reduced to ash before lifting the weight? Why not strike when the sun was full of heat, rage, and witness? The sun said nothing. The day did not answer. We only knew that something—or someone—had died with it, and the day, in its usual manner. And the day like every seasoned traitor, wore indifference like a well-fitted robe. It could have cried. It could have released rain. It could have bled its clouds red, or, at the very least, dragged another soul along for balance. But to wish for death—even when it feels fair—is to play god with soiled hands. They say it is uncultured, barbaric, to pray for a man’s fall. That’s what the scriptures and the textbooks of the well-fed teach. But God, if what we feel is called evil, record it. Engrave it deep in the book that weighs sin and sorrow. Record the mother who cried for help and received nothing but speeches—long, meandering speeches. Record my brother who mocked a neighbour’s stench, and the next week saw his teeth spilled like beans across the tar. Record my father’s death under the rain, in silence. And the way they said no one fired a gun. Remind me, how do we call a bullet hole a coincidence? So, if something must die with tomorrow, let it not be me. Let it not be my brothers, not my sister whose laughter still carries light. Let it be what we carry in our chests: the unnamed thing which eats our dreams raw. You know, God. We know. And we know you know. the sky did not cry but something beneath it broke-- no thunder, just teeth.
 Image via Karl Fredrickson We built our temples out of what was left of the body. Skin turned to plaster, ribs into arches, the hollow of the mouth a place to echo prayer. Blood dries faster when it believes in something and ours hardened to stone, iron made bright as gospel on the wall. The saints were human once, but no one remembers that part. Their faces burn through varnish, their bones humming in their glass cases. Pilgrims kneel before whatever still glows; candles, skulls, and small miracles sealed in airless gold. The chapel roof caved in, but the candles kept burning, caught fire. Ash fell like snow into the aisles, soft and radiant. Icons melted but the eyes remained. Someone swears they saw them move, a slow closing and reopening, as if the painted heaven behind them were breathing. We washed our wounds in holy water until the pain began to sing. Each scar became a psalm we could not ever stop reciting. Skin learns to glow where prayer touches it, light gathering in bruises, in the soft hollows of knees and throat. Grace tastes thin and metallic on the tongue, iron, the flavor of the body remembering how to believe. We named the silence between miracles eternity. The small breath held after the light finally went out. We kept the incense burning long after the gods left. The smoke bends itself into the shape of wings and, for a moment, everyone in the ruin believes again. Miracles rot slower than flesh. Light seeps from the bones for years after death, a slow confession of the body’s refusal to go dark. Everything in the dust remembers the shape of devotion. Holiness crystallizing around absence, turning emptiness to matter, turning prayers into mineral bloom. This is how the divine left fingerprints on everything it touched, and some of those prints still pulse under the right light. Every offering eventually becoming bone. Ashes cling to what refuses to be forgiven. The mouth of the dead tastes like gold leaf: soft, bitter, eternal. Even rot has rhythm, and faith is only the body learning how to decompose. We are what remains when belief turns to residue, when relic becomes the only river running toward survival. Our tongues bloom with dust. Our veins hum with light. Somewhere, a god is still listening to its own quiet, fading echo. The bones glow faintly through the glass. We kneel because we are holy, and because we are afraid of what still answers.
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