The Cedar

Here's day nineteen's submission of NaPoWriMo (a poem a day for the month of April in honor of National Poetry Month):

The Cedar

The cedar in the front yard

leans toward the house

and groans when it blows.

This worries me.

But not enough to call the arborist

and have him come cut it down.

We paid him a lot of green

five years ago to thin it,

to climb to the top with a chainsaw

lopping off limbs as he went

so the wind could blow through

its arching green branches

instead of knock it down.

Being a tree,

and doing what trees do,

it’s filled back in,

looks healthy and, the neighbors say,

“Great.”

They say the same about me,

and I have a bum knee,

an aching foot, a stent in my heart,

and I don’t see so well anymore.

I hope the cedar is doing better than me,

but when it blows, just to be safe,

I move to the other side of the house.

Spring Willows

Here's day twelve's submission of NaPoWriMo (a poem a day for the month of April in honor of National Poetry Month).

photo from Long Island Daily Photo

Spring Willows


I don't have a photograph
of a willow.
Today as I drove by
two trees tentatively sending shoots
out spindly arms
 - can I call them arms?
they seem armlike to me -
they move in the wind like we wave
or better, dance - a smooth swaying
or a sashay, one almost thinks...

Anyway,
these two trees, relatives, I assume
only because they were near one another
like a brother and sister might choose
another question:
- is it odd to think of tree as siblings -
 part of a family?
Isn't that what a grove is?

But to the narrative
I am struggling with here,
these two trees seemed to wave
as I drove by, and they had a feel to them
that they wanted to be noticed.
Or maybe it was just me, wanting to see them,
and I thought,
I don't have a photograph
of a willow.

I'd sure like one.