All at Once Poem by Ed Roberson

Trees have whole streets
of when they were planted

plaqued with when the city is

to inherit them dead

of age almost all at once as if

a natural bombing.





People see a bill not figured in,

a blood red

collection come

like fall's leaf due without fail

an unseen cost of the design:

pale bud and yellow blossom—





though seeming little to do this time

with tense spring

in the window

of dead and dying trees' terms up,

with expecting a life by life replacement—

not this plague of life's time





as a season across the city.

By trial we do, but don't

know how death counts the rings

from trees to clocks,

species to singled soul

at its hour. or on history's days we all die at once.