from the dry season

11.04 a tree
there’s a tree in the park
where I run
that is stubborn as
blisters on your feet
or a bad song in your ears

I take notice
in the fall
when the others begin to wear
their orange coats with
velvet hues

the spruces and the pines
are supposed to stay green
but this one is neither spruce
nor pine

this one is obstinate
stiff-necked
and uncooperative,
refusing to admit to what he is
his nature is to buckle
and to bend
when the horizon
opens wide it’s gates
to the cold northern chill
and the elements
blow the life off his brothers

yet he stands without
temper or color
clothed in the palettes
of a bygone era
while the other trees sway
and wither

they whisper to each other
that it will soon be his turn
to succumb to modernity
and he too will fall in line with the fashions
they are right,
soon he will be stripped of his
proud verdant robes.
because none are immune to
Winter’s cool touch
and when she embraces

him with frosty bosom,
he too will be brought low.
skeletal and bare.

on that day,
I will run on,
with eyes that are blind to him
once again,
because he too
shall be like the rest.