What to Do?
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

Trees sleep more and more these days,
they do more dawdling, and have trouble
catching their second wind.

Take the willow for instance,
mostly what they do nowadays is plan random
thoughts. They end up only writing their initials
instead of the stories they usually write,
and when a little boy turns into a hare
and bounds away, they hardly take notice,
when they sweep the ground they look
less and less like crones sweeping their cottages
and more like lost, tethered ghosts.

Another example is the pine.
Fewer and fewer of their cones follow
the Fibonacci spiral, and look less and less
like friars praying in a monastery, and more
like wooden teeth that fall out at the slightest breeze.

Now, I don’t have answers to any of this,
especially the stuff about the willows,
I’m just worried—autumn is approaching,
and when it gets here—what then?
What if their leaves are less vivid and bright,
and can’t hold on to their branches for very long?
And I can’t even help find solutions–I’m too busy
grooming my long, velvety ears and being skittish
at everything that moves.