TREES
1. Sentinel Pine
Sentinel pine,
Your yard arms so lateral,
Catch the winds for me,
Let the photons build the cells
That needle from your boughs.
Waft, and grow above the roots
That anchor life for now.
Sentinel pine,
Risen as a rapt design,
Intercepting every breeze
By undulating melodies,
Rooted in the scene; the air
Is your shrine, all you divine
Through it: electrical charge
Or arid interims, between the rains
You rivulet.
Sentinel pine,
May there be vanilla
In all I do - through bark
My heart beat, sensing you.
2. Yucca Pine
Yucca pine, Yucca pine,
You're so alive, so unsuppine,
Around your toes, a flush of spine,
I stab my shin by you. Herald
Of the winds, your sigh
A measure of the moving sky,
A seed the star's light grew.
3. Prayer Pine
Frail Prayer pine, lightning's gashed
Your side, making it more vulnerable to be.
Bark should be the cover for a wound so wide,
The vertical interior I see.
Still, you make dimensional this land
That I love. Rooted in your being, you
Portray force from above.
Momentary might can last a lifetime
As a trace, interfacing thunder with
The wood I here embrace.
4. Pinons
Pinons down along the path
Cannot rise again. They become
A broken swath to haunt all hiking men.
Ancestors with us in mind made paths
Ages ago, thinking all along
The forests lush would always grow.
They did not anticipate machines
Would make us sit, and watch as gases
Filled the sky - trees killed because of it.
5. Redwoods
Dorothy wept for redwoods, though they,
Above it all, cultivated wisdom of the ages
For their fall.
Luna's nest was empty, before the saw
Bit through. Wood as old as Abraham
From starting seedlings grew.
6. Forest
The difference between a line and line
Is annual. Across the forest every tree alive
Expands the scene. Some quell into snags
Or break, but all the rest rely
Upon infrequent storms to make one panoply
Of green.
GOAL
Reforest the trees,
Disown the car,
We an Eden's army
Are.
Ten billion trees,
The staff of God
Shall rise with our
Green army's aid.
Reforest the trees,
Disown the car,
Cool Earth's orbit
By a star.
Reforest the trees,
Disown the car,
Build deep soils
Life will share.
Reforest the trees
Will bring about
Heaven on Earth,
Put war to rout.
Reforest the trees
Our mantra frames.
The God of Adam
Eden dreams.
Ten billion trees, ten billion more,
Bulwark the entire sphere.
Moments grow to eons for the seeds
Planted right here.
AMERICANS
1. Lindbergh
Land like Lindbergh!
Beam the plane,
An ocean span alone
His reign.
Resilient he'd flown
A dream
On sandwiches
And reckoning.
He stands tall.
His smile glints.
A solo flight
The story prints.
2. Franklin
Franklin was a courtly man,
Gave out inventions free,
Warmed mankind with Franklin stoves,
Charted moving sea.
He was convinced Poor Richard's rise
His brother could afford;
Suppressed the Philly fires and
Electrified our word.
His French could charm the ladies,
His humor has no date,
And every year an almanac
Made people feel complete.
3. Lincoln
Lincoln's resolution
Lasts the living day:
Permanent, in marble,
Is what he had to say.
"A house divided cannot stand."
Match simplicity
With this joking fellow -
Just the kind of guy
To make one two countries
Or attend a play.
Unkilled by the single shot
The life he lived, and why.
4. Resolution
The gravest event our nation has faced was the Civil War.
Lincoln helped resolve that issue. Now we face global warming.
Only cultural adjustments will get us past the climate crisis!
With Lincoln's resolve in mind, let us find a way to fight our war
and win, and earn a cavalcade of train stops in candle light.