To the Trees

quick and slick

           and full of you,

the you I don’t want,

                        the you that brims over, brims under my lines, the you I can’t

remake, reshape,

                        the you I –

           just leave it, drop it, walk away. There’s nothing to see here.

Go to the trees,

           I always go to the trees, but let’s go

to the tree outside my window,

           the one standing on its own, away from all the others,

the one with the great arms stretching up

the one with too many fingers spreading themselves

           into shapes so the fierce birds might come to them. Too many for what?

To be just pointing at the sky,

           to be just making shapes for the birds?

They must be a trace of something,

           of some hand, some principle urging them on –

maybe Maths or God

           and God knows we don’t want to go down that road

                              do we?

           Just look at the trees.

I wish I didn’t know any rules, any at all, and then my poems,

           or this poem at least,

would move, would soar, would hover and break

           into thousands and thousands

                         of pieces of white material.