I'm taking off my shoes
I am barefoot
And screaming
And dreaming
Of what will enter me.
Tree trunks, roundworms, or nails.

I told you I wouldn't go out
But I just did.
The melting slush freezes me
And the faraway sun
Gives the illusion of a summer day.

I walk
I slither
Through the tall trees who stare at me
Like totem poles with dancing arms
Waving to me as I pass.
One stops me,
Tangles and shakes me
And I scream
Nothing.
I fall limp as a ragdoll
Succumbing to my every need to be
To be
This tree.
Shaking out the life of me
Drop by drop
Breath into gasp
And sucking me up into the roots --
I am rooted
Immobile
Perfect posture...
Finally.
I am pure.

I throw down my seeds
And replenish the Earth.
I live as an asexual criminal
Never having an unpure thought again.
I can not walk, but I can dance.
I can dance in the wind,
In the rain,
In the sun kissed mornings,
And icy freeze.
I can grow leaves to enhance my rhythm
I can shakes these leaves
Like maracas.
I am hard.
I am smooth.
I am strong.

I can spread my arms to Heaven,
If there is one.
I can outrun any spirit now.
I can live now, longer than Oregon
And be vertical
To outlast the paper and bindings
Where Sylvia Plath
Wrote her horizontal death wish.

I can be the flowers' friend
And finally not cry.
I can suck up the existence and tears
Of the cold world.
I can speak in a language you can understand.
Until someone cuts me down
Into a bloody pulp, for your paper --
To write on,
To write on,
To quench your loneliness,
To print your classified ad.
Until you burn me for warmth,
Crucify me in your backyard barbecue,
Swim in me
Drown in me, Firefly.
Fry your slabs of cow to a crisp
Cow, pig
Whatever.
Eat it
Because frankly I don't care anymore.
I'm the kind of vegetarian that only eats roses.
Well,
That's what Leonard Cohen says.
Mr. Cohen,
Show me how to fry petals
If you care,
If you dare.
If you can hear me rustle in the breeze.
Vertical or horizontal
In the end or the beginning,
All I wanted to be, was not me,
But a tree.

cf
2/25/99

<©>2002 Chantal Forrest