Some Mornings Should be Spent in a Tree

Fecund landscape,
terraformed and terraforming,
full of animals long habituated
to the roaring of wheels and steel,
children rushing from game to game
clutching violins, picolas, harboring
seeds of violence and remorse.

Surrounded by watery roads
and tankers tip-topped with cargo boxes,
highways and light rail lines,
pierced by adventuresome, noisome coyote,
hawk, pigeon and – recently – bear.

A lost son slipped in, fell
from a tree, where he’d been sleeping, forever.

Waving a branch in one hand, spoiled stolen
custard pie in the other, he shouted for Ahitophel,
marched to Ephraim, only to find a
Starbucks staring back at him, and David
sitting there, type typing on a silver machine.