You Are Not Welcome Here pt. 1

The White

marble outpost,

monument phalanx,

American Parthenons,

the watch towers for cracked

cement, crumbling tree groves;

I have come to this stone garden, den of flowers,

in the season for flowers

to grow no more, grow cold,

and die.

Concrete cracks

in face of the bleeding

autumn, but gods

don’t live in the crack.

You don’t know pain like cracked

pavement sidewalk.

As the brittle leaves

hemorrhage into the

pond that summer birds

have long abandoned; this is where

I will make my last stand

against the cold dark night,

then run to TV dinners

and lifeless white-washed walls.

The willow is the last

to surrender its arms

to the encroaching cold,

and it, too, cringes at

the scraping of the lost

and fallen leaves driven

by a cycle, a force,

the purpose of which is

beyond

these small deaths

Yes, this will be my altar

and the warmth my sacrifice

For just a few moments,

To salute the last

willow to fight.

I owe the trees

that much.

~J.E.Miller