Coast Live Oak

      The oak has a language in it.

      A buzz, a veiling buzz

      insists on the I wish.

      If you wish, the oak is buzzing, not

      from swarming, simply alarming,

      the dogs inflecting

      inside their boxes and chains.

      Listen, listen through.

      I have lost the I have.

      I carry a card to unlock forbiddens,

      a silent card that screams.

      In the true heart of Sunday

      the grass reforms its composite

      self, screaming menace,

      claimed in substrate,

      the step-

      child of the Chronicler.

      It won’t speak grammatically.

      It will impose green throughout

      and lie down for the mower again.

      (She is remembered

      only in daydreams, never

      in speech, never around the students,

      never at the ballpark while the players

      trot the bases before the game.)

      These flat recollections of events

      rarely feel like living.

      And these children

      bombing and standing beneath bombs.

      This secretary,

      these defenses

      and this televised citizenry.

      This oak and its technicolor translation.