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These two different poems were written after our 100 year old hollowed (and hallowed) Spitzenburg apple tree in our back yard split apart on this bright morning following the Fourth of July.
Declaration of Independence
July 5, 2008
(an exercise of "20 little poetry projects" for poetry class)
Perhaps 'twas day-late fireworks
Combusting in spontaneous eruption at dawn.
A pop, then silence
A
crack, then several more—
Stirred from spooning pallid oatmeal,
She looks up from the morning comics
To see the ancient Spitzenburg tree of life
Falling irrevocably split and splintered.
She wonders: hit by lightening? Absurd.
The sky is azure liquid lit.
Perhaps I hear echoes of delayed dreamt-like resonance
From midnight explosion of sulfured flowers and raining sparks.
Yet there it lies in dew-damp still,
Hollowed trunk emptied out like brittle bone broken,
Giving away in gasping anticipation
Of winter windstorms to come.
Perchance I can be patched together
With baling twine and superglue,
To hatch more of Thomas Jefferson’s apple favorites,
Sweet declaration to fuel his raison d’etre.
Instead I will choose rotting in fragile finale without encore,
Shattered sans wind, lightening or tire swing
Simply comin’ for to carry me home
Before winter rips me in half, pulling me up by the roots.
A different version, written in the pantoum form
As if a declaration of day-late fireworks
Combusting in spontaneous eruption at dawn.
A pop, then silence
Then crack, several more, then none.
Combusting spontaneously in erupting dawn
The ancient tree yields, leans a bit
Then cracking, shatters,
Falling irrevocably splintered and split.
The tree leans, toppled, lightening hit?
Not from this azure clear morning sky.
Falls irrevocable, splintered and split
Dream-like, resonant echoing cry.
Under azure clear sky dew-damp it lies,
Hollowed trunk broken as brittle bone,
Dream-spent gasp of echoed cries
Anticipating future storms windblown.
Hallowed trunk snapped brittle, an empty bone
Now rotting without final encore; a pop, then silence
Prepared for future storms windblown,
Day-late fireworks declaration, demanding independence.