A Poem Lost Its Perch

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Behind our house, I heard the field start to cry.
Before 8:00am I heard saws go working through the trees.
Their trunks gave out as iron mouths drew nigh
tearing the boughs where hawks once rode in the breeze.
Grief had found a timbered throat.
Each groan went down into the roots of me.
The birds broke camp as the sky became more remote.
A poem lost its perch in every tree.
I liked to look out there when the house was dim.
I borrowed courage from the branch and wing.
Those oak trees had made a chapel out of limb,
and the red Cardinal was a psalm on widening
air. Lord, please keep what those machines have shorn.
Plant songs in me where living woods were torn.