January 8, 2016

No End in Sight by Martin Willitts Jr.

The woods had a bad gnarly feeling 
after the developer drove off. 
The woods had heard what happens next.
The other isolated forests had spread the news 
before they fell to greed.

Once, there were so many of their brethren 
they could link branches. Now the space between 
grew more distant and it was getting harder 
to communicate. The woods had heard
the rumors of snap and break — how
even the tongues inside the stumps
stood no chance. What did life mean
if all it meant was loss and destruction?

The sequoias were the memory keepers 
and they had survived the Apatosaurus — 
even they now feared the axe. What
was the meaning anymore of being rooted?
The world was a rumble of logging trucks — 
all bloody, all heaving, all restless.

If only the dirt road made the trucks slip —
what a foolish wish 
not worthy even of the shrub brush.   







Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian living in Syracuse, New York. He was nominated for 11 Pushcart and 11 Best of the Net awards. He provided his hands-on workshop “How to Make Origami Haiku Jumping Frogs” at the 2012 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. 

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