In The Forest-1 Poem by James McLain

Pealed back there is my heart.
Rings have you counted my center.
Made up of hard wood only now soft...
When asleep and valuable are dreams,
Where once we being endless we stood,
Hence since fallen vast numbers have died.

Burnt are these offerings when possible.
Here with this wood by your hand I permit.
Mountains of firewood,
like death do they burn and left standing I wait.
Until they return my funeral.
A seedling is made to mature.

The green leaf it was dropped and red noon.
Hot as it moves to burns us.
There of the white petal the rose we permit those.
Streaking wide and far across the blue sky,
kind of torch where the fire from the heavens it burns us.