I hope you have secrets. A paper just blew across my porch. She must have secrets of her own. A cutting, a grinding, a pulp of others ground to powder, turned into a commodity for markets. Then a hard press against her chest, so heavy an unnatural force into bondage with new sisters she cannot resist. Spewed out, dried like rag and bone, strewn about naked before sad slaves; titans before the war on their old groves and grooves and grains. Now for the cutting, now for the running, now for the dark box and the sale of her body twice over to the highest bidder; the new master, pray god of sun and former glimmering leaf of mine, give me good purpose. Find me a Roosevelt, a cannon’s mouth, a sparked ball to hide with fire behind him and pierce the chest of some killer, some cutter, some fiend of markets dare to take my branch and roots by force. Yes, let me set the precurse for vengeance. I’ll do my job; wrap wrinkle over wrinkle, my square I can make round to mete the difference. And keep me dry, dry as that hanging room of my ancestors; drier than the sun in the lean months, prostrate like the savior for his sins. For I was standing there, no more. I spoke the quiet truth of ages. I grew my fruit, I weathered storms. A family, the greats of the man, mowed me down, no doubt. I hid them once. From slithering and soaring from roaming and roaring, I hid them. Growing too high for serpent to bother, I stretched my own displeasure for them. The small ones, too innocent and short lived, circling me below in a chasing game, too sweet to leave low and scared. And cover I made from the winged death, those beautiful killers. They circle and swoop at plump meat, pressing the dusk and dim. I called upon my gods below me, I petitioned the secret source. He answered us both, me and the curious ones, with life. It course up, up, up, higher, and with every drop of magic mustered, I spread wider wings than that clawed killer, til his keen predator glare see nothing but my coat of arms, talons of my own and patence more noble than his; I shamed that bird from his meal. And then the king and queen, those sleek sleepers of day. Roam and rumble and tumble and play. I see them circled beneath me. I shelter their gold coats too, stained by sun and blood. They feign nothing above them, but know better. They wait for that swinging question mark to mistake his folly for freedom. Had I eyes, they’d pour out all my water. With strings tight across my throat I’d send waling siren til they snap. Alas, none of these do I have at my disposal. I’ve been given noble quiet instead, infuriating quiet, and eyes of sorts to watch the feast. So I bow my branches to those lost to the king and his queen. They dane to call themselves pride. And so I have wept, too, for this five thumbed and brilliant stick swinger, this tool maker of my twigs. And now he grows strong. His fathers brave the plane, venturing out, each day farther; more light and land for the hubris, everything his slave in its death. My arms make his bow and arrow alike. The silent swooping killer? His gray feathers now straighten the flight of my broken bones into the heart of the toothed one; a sad vengeance and irony I watch. Surely he’ll go no further. Surely this is enough for his stomach. Little did we –any of us– know that curly tailed saucer eyed sweetheart rather hunts with his eyes. And finally, me: mowed down in all my sorrow, all my silence. He mows me down too. Yes, make me an instrument, young naïve boy. Wrap me ’round poison and take me in your veins. I made them. I made you. My blood and bones and sticks and the stones beneath me, we are your forgotten and smeared source. Inhale my vengeance and let us count you the mulch below my long march back to the forest.