The tree is poisoned? Where do you get that? I took those worms at face value, and figured the roots of the tree were infested somehow. Whatever is wrong with that tree, trust me--it isn't grieving. To say so isn't irony to my eye, it's a silly anthropomorphism.
But, y'know, Hope set out to do something in this poem and he did it. That's undeniable.
"Imperial Adam" knocks my socks off. Such powerful imagery. What point did you mean it to illustrate?
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Ciao for now,
Kate