Dream of the Cottonwood
It’s a soft wood with a hard eye.
It’s the darkness complete with the blood of crows and owls.
It’s the smell of Dakota wind traveled over shale, gully, rolling grass.
Its roots reach down below the shovels of dead Scottish settlers,
Past the gopher and chipmunk tunnels and the crisscross of conduit and sewer.
It holds one entire street in its muscled torque.
It's hard not to feel strongly about this tree,
The way you do about a bully or a sheriff left alone with scripture.
In May, its sap pellets eat car paint. June brings trampled tufts of snow.
Giant spears snap from its crown in July thunder.
In September, it showers tons of silver dollar leaves
Into gutters and drainpipes. In January, it throws shadow bones on snow,
And lives as a thing aggrieved by the slick of winter.
It is our Mount Vesuvius. One day it will crush homes and cars in a tremor of joy.
Just the other night, I got a peek at heaven stalking this cloud-tree
With rain-claws shining. A straight-line wind peeled off ribs
Of inner sheathing yet when I looked up,
I saw nothing missing from the uncontested bole.
The tree buffed stronger from the storm.
Two men squared off in the street to fight about the wreckage.
Why hasn't it been cut down, one man demanded.
The other defended the cottonwood’s claim to the neighborhood.
The police came. Nothing happened that would be written on the furl of its bark.
It was here before the men were born.
It will remain a century after they are dead.
It doesn't care who loves or hates it.
It is cut. It grows taller. It dies. It lives on.
It stands up inside the fence of lightning to grab the voltage with its fingers.
J.P. White is an author of essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews, and poetry in over a hundred-fifty publications. Read more.