| Author | Message | ||
| M
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4545 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Ancient Trees – 2 Janet Kenny Old trees in gardens have some special grace Like cities they protect innumerable swarms that interplay within their wooden arms. Each creature settles in its proper space. Migrating birds return to find a perch they knew last year; each separate creature fends off predators and artfully attends to propagation and survival’s search. Beneath the bark large spiders lurk, and ants form formic armies, endlessly en route on tribal foraging, in dull pursuit of anything organic, beast or plant. Birds battle lizards, mice and possums; eggs and nestlings are a prey for reptiles, rats, marsupials, large beaks, nocturnal cats, and anything with appetite and legs. Snakes rough off skins on bark and leave them limp like last night’s trousers hanging on a chair, and insect life arrives from ground or air to drill or kill by stealth or sudden jump. Below it all the poet calmly reads unconscious of the struggle overhead; oblivious to the collective tread of populations fighting for their needs. But if we listen gradually we can hear the din of traffic in a tree. |
