The trees are a problem,
their roots lifting sidewalks
to the autumn sky
and my complaints
bitter with the choices
between hardness and life.
I decide with the roots
going down into wet soil
for knowledge,
up with dark strength
to break apart ignorance.
Black hooded crows
watch from nearby branches,
wondering what will rise
as avenues of leafless trees
join the revolt.
photograph by Louis MacKenzie
Reading of “Dark Strength” with music by Stan Getz.
Don, I like the image of the sinister black crows, no doubt the symbol of the lawyers waiting to scavenge the outcome of the tension with the roots below. Very nice.
Ha ha! Wry dismount. I like how you evoke an atmosphere quickly and then inhabit it and then animate it with the crows and the trees and the narrator in conversation, all in a brief few lines.
And thank you so much for your poem of condolence—that means a lot to me. I should have thanked you earlier, but I couldn’t write or even think for a couple weeks. It is inspirational that you wrote a poem for Cheryl’s passing—it added a dark strength to an important moment of both dark and light.
Yet another POWERFUL PIECE, soul brother!
Sister T
Don — Thanks for this. It is timely for me, one of those “sinister black crows” of whom our Brother Figel speaks. After witnessing the insanity of the “Made for TV” controversy over Free Speech and genocide in Congress this week, I am more than ready for the trees & their roots to continue their slow but sure destruction of what pretends to be reality. Mike
What an image;dark strength breaking apart ignorance!
It is good… important even to acknowledge the strength and wisdom to be found in darkness. As light fades the forest comes alive to the quiet movement of air born of soft, muffled feather. The emissary of wisdom and strength moves most effectively in realms not yet perceived by the outer orb of awareness.
A time of allowing everything connected in it’s proper season as the subterranean can be acknowledged in the all inclusive Womb from whence all righteous flowering will have it’s day.
Thanks, Don! Always thought provoking!
A virulent poem, this!