“I cannot close the door of this enchanted place, because I have it in my heart.”
—Philippe Jaccottet
I broke the word at the same place
it was smashed by a rock or
a pine cone, a mushroom grew out of it
a woman told me: mushrooms are invasive
so I wrote a bee-sized poem
and I read it to a bee who seemed
uncaring—it chose pollen over
my words, as city planners choose money
and trouble, and construction men
in their yellow vests and hardhats,
millions of them about the park
they love to dig in the park
as I love to cry in front of them
and look mournfully with my large
black velvet sad eyes at the fences
they have set up between them and me
the bulldozer backs up almost
to my hands held out, and further
it breaks upon the forest, its body
as yellow as being betrayed—
the forest after everything
has been cut down, a few
trees, a few squirrels, some
paper on the ground to remember it by
