Chainsaw Poetry

Ode (not) to a Chainsaw Victim

My not-so-lovely cedar tree,
Your life is quite soon not to be.
A hundred years you've been around,
But now its time you hit the ground.

Stealing water from the earth,
Has been a thing that gave you mirth.
Now you'll hand your station over,
To another tree of prettier cover.

Hear the chainsaw roar with glee,
Before it sinks its teeth in thee.
Tilting is the last thing you remember,
As the Chainsaw Yogi utters "Timber".


I Saw in Wimberley a Live-Oak Growing
(With respect to Walt Whitman, from whose work "I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing" I substituted "Wimberley" to suit my needs)

I SAW in Wimberley a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it stood there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its friend near,
for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Wimberley solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend or lover near,
I know very well I could not.