TREE PLANTER POET
The tree planter writes a book
She is a knife
sharp as mountain morning
blade steel blue as northern lake
she swings with youthful abandon
cuts through light, shadow, and flesh
We stand white bone to white bone
and bleed into the earth and sky
Ten years later she writes another
Knife cuts dull meat and metaphor
catching only small reflections of light
through comfort of kitchen window
The reader and the blade
yearning for the grindstone
and the trail of sparks