Specifics

 

She wants edgy
but I'm all soft surfaces,
for life has honed me smooth
and knocked off all
my bumps and corners.

She wants specifics
but my brain is soup.
I  pluck out familiar things
I can identify, a branch, a leaf,
but when it comes to the names 
of moss, moss is just moss to me,
and beautiful enough that way.

She wants poems  about
the being-ness of trees,
when I am still trying to master
being a human loving trees.

I need to go into the woods
and stare at a tree, allow it
to reveal its specific self to me.
Then maybe I can write
about what it is to be a tree
in this world that is so dangerous
to trees, and you, and me.

Day 10.  An editor here in Tofino is doing a tree poem anthology that is going to be amazing. I am struggling with submission guidelines, non-specific as I am, and prone to generalities.