ROGER PFINGSTON

The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Roger Pfingston

The Company of Trees

In this aberration of days
I walk among the trees,
distance of no concern,
or stop and lean into
their rooted calm,
even sit awhile and listen
as they creak to the whim
of the weight-lifting wind,

leaves slurring their words,
a slow tune unlike the quick burst
of birdsong or my own voice
trying lines that may
or may not last beyond
the morning hour, though more
than glad for the one
that clings like a new leaf.

Namesake

November 2, 2020

Walking the Clear Creek Trail, and just over
the bridge, my wife and I come across
half a dozen felled trees, not the horizontal cut
of human endeavor, rather young trunks

chewed to a point, upper pieces dragged
no doubt to the ongoing construct of dam
and lodge—maybe 50 yards away—the two
of us, under a mix of sun and clouds,

in awe of these eco architects, a colony
of nocturnal rodents sleeping to the rush
of water before they slip out, as they must,
to work by the light of a Beaver Moon.