Read Excerpts from The Chaffin Journal

Poetry

I have always wanted to make the trees speak
In a language I could understand
To learn their secret words
That worship the sun
Speak the praises of the rain
Dote on birds
Shake with irritation
At the ruminations of squirrels

Trees who in the north
Whisper the seasons
Maybe the jazz of spring or the pianoforte of winter
Trees who in the south
Sing in plainchant
The praises of unending sun
Deferring death to the imagination of frost
Which seldom calls

Trees whose tone is
An easy color of green
The romantic voices of Goethe and Rilke
Holding the natural rhythms of inflected languages
Each syllable almost rhyming
In the infinite rustle of leaves

With roots that swell in the heat
Like the ankles of pregnant women
Naked fingers reach
From damp ground
Into the protesting clouds.