Mike Alexander

About Place Journal, Volume II Issue I
Trees

 
AN EXCERPT FROM HAMADRYADS
from Pierre Louÿs
 
iii
 
The trees of the forest are beautiful
women, invisible beneath the tree’s skin.
The purest water waters them from heaven.
Wind dries their hair, crowns each with parasol.
 
Their faces are not charged with Cybele’s tour:
the shadow of flowers over their glancing
descends, as the green ivy advancing
down their arms makes their green fruits ruddier.
 
The trees of the forests are women standing
who by day bear the eagle & the owl by night,
then watch them fly above the earth, out of sight.
 
Brief hope & an uncertain understanding
about their naked shoulders circulate;
the tearful captive is rooted to her fate.
 
 
 
Mike Alexander’s poems have recently appeared in River Styx, Measure, Raintown Review, Abridged, Southword, The Nervous Breakdown, & other journals. A recent chapbook, We Internet in Different Voices (Modern Metrics), is available through EXOT books.