On bleary mornings, Eos on my way to work,
twenty years, my matins, I passed a coppice,
a sloughing of limbs, tall, splendid oaks,
condensed diorama forest emerging from haze.
I’d envision a doleful wanderer, an abbey ruin,
Casper David Friedrich’s bleak, romantic
painting. The modern came crashing, suddenly
a rude huffing, greasy bulldozer, a hole
in the ground, a house, concrete, lumber, vinyl,
bramble of wire and pipe, razing my sublime,
though the trees seemed glad for the company —
too much gloom. Who knows? Kids may play
in bits of shade, long summer afternoons,
collect twigs after a wind, and construct forests
for dolls and fairies.