Silent Masters Poem by Robert Gallagher

Tall, thin, sparse

Jack Pines straining, attaining

Spindly heights

Crackling dry and spaced like dominoes

Arranged by a petulant child

Red needles acrid and desiccated tumble

On imperceptible expirations of August

The wood of the Pine

Is it the true medium?

North and South a million miles of matchstick sentinels

East and West an eternity of needles, sap and peeling, scaly bark

The hills are less compelling than the trees

The timber is the thing

An aggregate that overwhelms the matter that sustains it

Trunks, branches, needles

All

Air unimportant

Soil figmental

Water but a nebulous presence today

A random stone; here, an arbitrary intruder

Irrelevant

The solemn stanchions matter now

They are everything

Spiking their way into this world

From a dimension unseen

Silent masters