What we know about trees

Alex Z. Salinas

We know nothing about trees
other than what they show us:
invasion, expansion, fresh green
air to breathe.

I have stared at trees,
written about trees,
talked to trees my poems
loyal as fallen leaves.

But not once in my
breathing life have I been
mistaken for a tree,
not even in a make-believe play.

Made simply from words
from people in invasive
glory—yet we are
cut down every day.

And respond with song
and more often, for far longer,
silence expanding
so cleanly into the wind—

I will never forget, angel,
the deep thick remorse of your
tears for trees cut down
in movies.

You were mad at me
for not seeing it—
the trees, the trees
everywhere falling from me.