Signs

Sometimes poems begin because I hear a snippet of language. Sometimes they begin because of an image that strikes my eye. But whether it’s language or an image coming from outside, it demands my attention when it resonates with something already going on within.

Recently, I was driving home at night from my daughter’s house and stopped at a busy three-way intersection. The next morning, I began this poem.


Signs

The tree near the stoplight
turns green then yellow then red.
All day every day.
All night every night.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
But the tree
has nowhere to go.
Nothing to yield.
No reason to stop its sap rising.
Nor does the tree reflecting the light
send its own signals.
Green doesn’t mean
it’s spring in December.
Nor yellow, it’s fall in June.
Nor red that the tree is on fire.
Unless elsewhere
the seasons lack order.
Unless elsewhere
the trees are on fire.
Unless on earth
nations are perplexed
by the tossing of the sea.
The signs are all around us.
Of what we must let go.
What we need to yield.
What’s within our power to stop.
All day every day.
All night every night.
The world is on fire.
Closer than you think.
Blink. Blink. Blink.