Roy Herndon Smith
The plane tree muscles
into the earth, reaches through
to air to the sun.
The invisible
sap runs through it, nourishing
roots, trunk, branches, leaves—
the glorious whole.
When invisible poisons
fill the air and earth,
the invisible
sap carries them to the whole.
Leaves yellow and fall,
branches rot and fall,
trunks split, roots fail. All of us
are trees, we all fall.
dust 