Nancy Davies

Cutting the Trees

This dead pine refuses to fall.
Even when we cut its feet
it stands, or hangs, Absalom
by the hair, from other trees.

And we, we push and rope
making thunder and bolts
of breaking branches, prising
from reluctant arms.

Afterward I straddle the silence
hold in my hand heart
reeking of resin, drawn in the waving
circles of a very old story.

We knew all along you were dead.
Or not dead. Which did we know?
That transformations go hard, even for trees,
wrenched out of your body into the sun.

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