Contemplating a Tree

I find the interest of a woodpecker,
but I cannot hold it for long.
There follows tiredness of spirit
like a crow that cannot find home,
and then the nervousness of cicadas
in the territory of crows.

I come to doubt the purpose of my task,
call myself a suburban fool
unfit for a noble hermit’s occupation.
I compare other trees more lofty,
more straight, or with more lyrical curves,
and then can hardly see the forest.

A journal of trees my life has written
opens and spills out, a swing somewhere,
Nanny’s apples, the pine barrens,
the Smoky Mountains,
and Charlie Brown’s.

I imagine that the tree sees me.
It is reflecting that it cannot move.
I offer a little joke about how
I cannot stay still.