Ruth Stone (June 8, 1915 – November 19, 2011)

While needles of the evergreen
practice a windy chaos,
heads of snarled hair;
something in the tree
longs for old age;
bald brown knobs of skull
without subterfuge;
but it continues with its greedy
resinous sexual odors.
The odors rise against one another,
spurting away from the scaly bark.
Along its fingers the tree
holds out microscopic traps.
Popping bullets of sunlight
crack into the subliminal
orifices, and the tree thinks,
“How exquisite. Is this love?”