Maximus Yost

Grade: 12

Kenston High School

Instructor: Kari Beery

Bare-Boned

Poetry

Bare-Boned

One, two, three trees down,
"Timber" yelled loud
The silent forest, pierced by sound
The cracks and creaks, dozens of them, and the rot flinging to the ground

Seen from afar, these trees are
Bark peeling, disconnected decay, like the skin on a burn victim's arm
Supple; easily they fall, plundered of life they leave a scar—
But they were already dead, skeletons of esprit, wasting good soil, vetted by Nature's harm

Verdure stripped long ago, now bare-boned statues,
Of a year ago, or two or three, when life was not yet shattered,
And reaching height for sunlight was all that mattered

Now they cry, their peeling bark rolls down their cheeks and into their dimples,
The homes of birds and bees and mice, full of wet-wood-stained-black, and the bark ripples
To the ground, where it shakes the hand of the dry leaves and laughs, while more dribbles,
"I'm here to assist your duties" it snickers. "What's left up there is all so miserable"