The trees are stricken with a terrible illness
a certain shrillness that permeates
their perpetual stillness.
And I have seen them.
Their pitch dripped hearts buried underneath
Their brown and rough bark, our version of skin.
And I have cut them.
Looking for their sap, their form of our blood
Hoping to find it still sticky sweet with life,
Hoping it has not succumb to their illness
That is our men.
Men, with burly beards and chainsaws
That are the trees versions of sterile masks
And metal toothed needles
Chainsaw needles that pump poison into
The trees’ version of our arms
Their form of cancer that
Ravishes through what would be our
Organs.
Men with saws that are our version of chemo
Shaking off the leafs that would be
What we call hair
And I have seen them.
They fall down the same way we would
And are covered by our same dirt earth.