you could call us the men of the trees
while your great-grandfather Adam walked in the garden
his god gave us the immense forest
where we could watch each rubescent dawn burst
from an incandescent east and fade to blue
and congregate in our howling treetops as they swayed
with life and carmine flowers bloodied by rain
we could not hear the serpent instigate the gardener’s revolt
the latter evasive in his girdled leaves
thrust from his domicile like fire drives the deer
descendent into the hard fields and long day’s pastures
to repent at leisure in the consequent suffering of a carnal world
and to lament the justice he saw his god dispense
you are the great-grandson of the apple-eater and his mate
and conjure from your borrowed wisdom such a notion
evolution was the fruit of your larcenous tree
by which we should be juveniles of the same secretive mother
but oh you are too haughty in your imagined rationality
to admit to such an instinctive second-cousin
and you conceal the common pattern that creates us a relation
and instead distance us with a facile epithet – prosimian
so chisel our name upon the last log you haul from the forest
and if it is arcane or lost to your memory
you could call us the men of the trees
Gold trophy winner
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