Self-Portrait As Tree
by Lindsay Turner

In the world of up sometimes
it rains for hours, it rains

for days sometimes in the world of up
it rains right through the most beautiful of all
the hours and they start to turn transparent, simplify

to clear they fall. The big drops
fall down, loosening the way.

Sometimes down here it smells
like old ambition, like the hay fields

that never dried, like looking

at the sky and waiting.

The air moves and turns and circles
back around bark gets darker

with the rain, reflecting, a new pattern
showing up as moisture the first time,

the pattern soaking in.

Are you sure that this is up?

My skin feels tight I try to
move there must be more
that works toward change than weather.

When I concentrate my little finger
crooks the branches take the light, run
it down into their cores and out.

I like the things that end by rising, here’s
a place where every end is up to lay

them out and make them still is more
than I can count all the shadows

keep on shifting anyway.

No leaves

yet they would begin to move
unevenly in wind were there

no leaves no wind the only motion
here today would be the wind

I only want to think about the wind.