To Be With Trees

 

I dreamed of trees with blue veins in a forest full of wilting.
And there, all my southern girl self, full of No thank yous,
 
full of You first and Go ahead and have the last piece of cake.
 
I want that that last piece of cake. Dreamed the trees
made me my own torte, and I could have the whole thing.
 
My sisters, the trees, they said Come now, sit, eat.
 
They had blue veins in the forest full of wilting, and I cried.
There were no forks. They said my hands were fork enough.
 
And when I tried to say please, the trees said my eyes
 
were please, and they said my mouth was thank you,
and the trees cried too. They had beautiful eyes
 
for crying. A color I had never seen. So, I named it
 
Godlovesyoureyesbecauseshemadethemthisbeautifulcolor.
Now anyone who ever saw the color would think of the trees
 
and the meaning of the trees, which was to be.
 
 
 

Melissa Studdard is author poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the novel Six Weeks to Yehidah. Her poetry, fiction, essays, reviews and articles have appeared in a wide range of publications, including Poets & Writers, Tupelo Quarterly, Psychology Today, Pleiades, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day. Of her debut poetry collection, I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast, Robert Pinsky writes, “This poet’s ardent, winning ebullience echoes that of God…” and Cate Marvin says her work “would have no doubt pleased Neruda’s taste for the alchemic impurity of poetry.” Learn more at www.melissastuddard.com.