Now I can see: even the trees
are tired: they are bones bent forward
in a skin of wind, leaning in
osteoporosis, reaching
for a little more than any
oxygen can give: when living
is in season, they can live;
but living is no reason
to continue: everything begins:
and everything is desperate
to extend: and everything is
insufficient in the end:
and everything is ending:
Now I can see: even the trees
Source: Poetry (September 2009).
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This poem originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Poetry magazine
Malachi Black is the author of Storm Toward Morning (forthcoming 2014 by Copper Canyon Press), and two limited edition chapbooks: Quarantine (2012) and Echolocation (2010). A recipient of a 2009 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, Black has also received recent fellowships and awards from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the University of . . .
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