Living Tree Poetry

I opened the news today
and thought, ‘what do I do with this?’

These stories hard to digest
for being true.

‘What!’, and ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ –
all question defying answers

yet hanging in the air
faintly as lost souls.

I opened the news today,
and found it wet with ink dripping,

and dark red as rivers
running blood.

That I picked it up
and shaped it as a paper plane,

to drive it far,
but watched it fall sodden to the ground.

I opened the news today
and wished to God I hadn’t.

Thinking, ‘surely the trees and birds
were more real than these shapes of letters?’

So instead I took the news
and ripped it into compost,

knowing those made for protest
already had it inked on skin.

I opened the news today
and busied myself like a gardener,

thinking I would take each day’s pain
and with it feed the birds.

For everyone deserves
a second chance at life,

that today I wear a priest’s garb
digging in consecrated ground.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
May 2019