Rumble of The Trees | Teen Ink

Rumble of The Trees

October 25, 2023
By LukeRMacNaughton SILVER, Honolulu, Hawaii
LukeRMacNaughton SILVER, Honolulu, Hawaii
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

If Mother gave trees knees, would they run? For fun? And when they're done, would they Speak of what they had begun? Would they say that they laid waste, to their course’s concrete face? Would there be leaves, broken branches, and spent bark left behind, left rumbling in the dark?  Would all that spent organic waste become a disgrace? Or would it embrace, too, life like the kneed trees, to run across the course’s concrete face?  No, do not tear yourselves to tatters, little leaves.  No, you are not litter.  Your parents merely lost track of you as they ran along. Keep moving after them, tumbling forward in their wake. Stop not upon the concrete face where their foots have ceased to run.


The author's comments:

I enjoyed playing with different words, sounds, and concepts. I found myself thinking more about the life cycle of organic matter and wanted that to reflect in the poem itself. But I didn't want to play with the concept of seasons, as if the leaves that grew in the spring were reincarnations of the leaves that fell the year before. I wanted there to be a sense of loss, and so I worked that into the poem by playing with the decay of the leaves and The Roots ceasing to run where the concrete is, because that's literally been the death of trees (and of the recycling of the leaves). I hope you enjoy it. 


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