A New Poem for the Trees (Han Shan Conundrum – Part 2)
I wrote a poem to save trees.
A Han Shan poem to dangle like a leaf
in an endangered forest.
The forest was saved.
The poem removed.
And now you want to rehang it but don’t you see?
it would be like trying to re-attach a fallen leaf to a tree.
The life force disconnected, it could only be a sad thing,
a dead trophy.
Instead we should be writing a new poem,
a poem to the trees
wishing them well.
A poem to all the other poets whose words stayed the bulldozer.
A poem to the people, all the people,
who will one day walk the forest and think,
“How wonderful.
This is the forest that poets helped save.”
#26
Linda Studley 