September 2017
Tricia Knoll
triciaknoll@gmail.com
triciaknoll@gmail.com
Breathing haze from 100s of wildfires in British Columbia today in 100 plus degree heat in Portland, Oregon seems like having stumbled into an alternate universe. As uncanny as the political world we are living in. It makes me as grateful for poetry as I have ever been. Website: triciaknoll.com
The Sugar Maple’s Monologue
You promised. If I speak my truth
you would never make a map, a You-Tube,
no GPS route to a tree that speaks it mind.
I use your vocabulary.
Trees linger. Loiter. Sometimes litter.
I have complicated needs
despite your doubt. I want safety.
Water. Food. My seed kin
face improbable odds of becoming.
We take chances that demand patience
with beings so alien they rush
by dozens of times a day.
We learn over time
to be resilient to bad things.
Lightning. Hurricanes. Fire.
We may lose. Growing old
rips off limbs of grace.
My seasons –
rush, fledge, red, and naked.
I know stops. Starts.
Intervals of non-thought.
My truth: trust trees.
© 2017 Tricia Knoll
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