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Mark Jarman
reads
Decision
in Real Audio format.
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Under the poplar’s well-fed canopy,
The maple might prefer itself this way,
A spray of knobby sticks, contented with
The meal of meager daylight left to it.
The trees are skin to skin 15 feet up,
Until the poplar leans into the fork
Of its partner’s yielding, or so it thinks.
In fact, the maple throws its limbs apart,
Holding its leaves like handfuls out of reach,
Resisting a love it can’t seem to refuse.
Relieve its misery and cut it down—
It’s not clear that the killer would survive.
And so, unless we want to lose both trees,
We let them stay like that. One tree is turning
More elegant the more it gives away
And the other more dependent on its victim.
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