A Couple of Trees
The two oaks lean apart for light.
They aren’t as strong as lone oaks
but in a wind they give each other lee.
Daily since I cleared them I can see
them, tempting to chain saw and ax—
two hardwoods, leaning like that for light.
A hurricane tore through the state one night,
picking up roof and hen-house, boat and dock.
Those two stood: leafless, twigless, giving lee.
Last summer ugly slugs unleafed the trees.
Environmental kids wrote Gypsy Moths Suck.
The V of naked oaks leaned to the light
for a few weeks, then put out slight
second leaves, scar tissue pale as bracts,
bandaged comrades, lending each other lee.
How perilous in one another’s V
our lives are, yoked in this yoke:
two men, leaning apart for light,
but in a wind who give each other lee.
