summer is dead
i found her green leaf body
at the foot of an oak
in the first snow
blanketing the valley
the smell of diesel
100 feet downridge
there’s a fallen nest
woven from strips of wild
gravevine bark
the trees are becoming
more and more vacant
though they shriek
and moan in the wind
i remember what jesus
said about new wine
and old wine skins
like this katydid lasting
long enough to be filled
with the unknown
like this spruce weeping
white beards of sap
from dozens of rows
of sapsucker-drilled wells
and all those wounds
somehow still open
summer is dead
they crucified her
two deer bound past
without seeing me
pursued as they are
by one with antlers
holding them high
almost shining
his rack as the hunters call it
his naked tree
