...I've decided to retire this poem from the poetry slam (but I'll perform it elsewhere). I've been compressing it to fit into one and two minute slots, but here's the full-length version...You, Arbutus, are the most indecent tree.
You curl, twist and taunt the evergreen legion – that is everywhere – to abandon its rigidity.
You have scandalized my simple heart with your serpentine curves,
with your constant undressing, with the way you are always shedding your darkest bark,
letting it curl away, as if protection from Nature’s claws meant nothing to you,
as if all you ever cared for was the chance to bare your smoothest, greenest skin
to Nature’s breath: Her winds.
You, Arbutus, choose the most ludicrous places to grow.
I’ve seen you burst from rock faces, from no more than a handful of earth.
I’ve seen you lean out from craggy shorelines that have been abandoned
by the rest of the living, growing fray,
and for what? the seawater spray?
You, Arbutus, are a carpenter’s worst nightmare.
Your flame-like body has refused the obvious journey,
swirling away from the sun in rebellious digressions that have left your wood winding,
and filled with knots. Uprooted & fragmented, you lean toward the window,
daring the poor carpenter to just try and boil the stubborn sun-hunger from your core.
What good are you for anything but firewood?
(–although,
one minor log of your superdense fibre
can fuel a fire through the night. And yes,
it might be that your strange yearning
is better filled not by following light, but being it through burning.
Still–)
Arbutus, you are wildly out of step with your surroundings.
Haven’t you noticed? This is a forest of dim and desaturated browns and greens!
It’s not a home for you,
and your auburn bark, your blood red berries, your emerald leaves.
You, Arbutus, are an outsider.
You only manage to fit in for a few weeks at the climax of that carnival called Spring.
Arbutus, don’t change a damn thing.
"You, Arbutus" was originally published in the Spring 2008 issue of
Vancouver Review
