Bill Webb’s most recent poem to appear here was Christmas Lights (April 2014).

Trees
By Bill Webb

We lived near an orchard once,
Row upon row of low gnarled trees
Tended by an old gnarled man
Misshapen like the trees,
They stunted for harvest
He by age, both according to plan.

A college owned it.
Though in their season
Singing robins and squawking jays
Declared their claim.
In fall beneath the laden branches
At dusk deer and rabbits feasted.

We walked the trees by day
Tiny fingers grasping mine
Always seeking the same tree
A living throne that welcomed
Curls and ponytails.

They would dare higher
Then, perched boldly at
Impossible heights
Warble more beautifully than any bird.

One night we chanced upon a skunk
The kitty with the white stripe
Who stared, surprised as we
And in that moment’s grace
Hand in hand we laughing ran
Faster than light, faster than smell.

When the old man died
The college bulldozed every tree
Too much work maintaining them.