Paulann Petersen

This Tree

There’s the Pine
who remains silent
amid great provocation,
and the Fir
who murmurs and creaks
when all else is still. 

There’s the Poplar
who wants nothing more
than everything I have,
unlike that Birch who never wants 
anything to do with whatever
belongs to me. 

By unfurling one by one,
leaves of a certain Maple can count
to near a thousand,
while the Aspen’s quaking leaves
warn me not to count on it
for anything. 

That nameless tree in my dreams?
Each night it journeys 
great distances, but always 
returns to the same rooted place
before light can spy
on its wanderings.

This dream tree is nothing 
if not every tree.

Urban Nocturne

against boughs of fir    crows roost their own darkness   
fold their voices     into resined breath

that riverbed    coursing this city
gathers together      the current’s long skirts    
twists the silk of dusk     into crumpled handfuls 

baring pink gums     unsheathing her needle-teeth grin
a possum    hisses her milky breath   
as she wends from one compost bin    to the next 

the seethe     of each anthill settles     
every fir tree sags its branches     into a swaying drowse
stones let loose     that sun-heat of their daydreams      

in the deep-life     of fraught city blocks 
untold creatures     breathe unseen

their murmurous slumber     tincture-steeped
the potioned sleep     of portent

Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita, has eight full-length books of poetry, most recently My Kindred from Salmon Poetry of Ireland. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Birmingham Review, Prairie Schooner, Orion, Catamaran, Wilderness Magazine, and the Internet’s Poetry Daily. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, she’s the recipient of the Holbrook Award from Oregon Literary Arts, and the Distinguished Northwest Writer Award from Willamette Writers.