poem

 The Dead Don't Dance

The old dead trees don’t move an inch

In the summer gusts

At most a doddering stiffness

The punch drunk stagger

Of an old prize fighter

While all that whirling curving sway

Of green limbered branches

Whooshing in the winds around them

The dead don't hear the music

Only the living can dance

Brushing the dust from the air 

In billows of undulating rhythm 

Only the black crows pay me a visit

Perched high up on skinny brittle limbs

Cawing back and forth like estranged sisters 

The song birds never alight here

Only scavengers allowed

Scanning the fields for carrion

Before launching their diving attacks

I pray for a storm

The violence of wind 

To snap my hollow trunk in half 

7/14/22