Only trees

saw us and it was nothing
to them. They have seen the couplings
(inventive and abortive) of creatures with histories

that surpass ours, creatures with a fierce and exact longevity.
And we lay there thinking that we could die from such activity,
such longing to be one and none. And after—the blood rush

subsiding—we sensed our bodies without transcendence,
our soft weights on the scrabbly earth. Small stinging things
came for our flesh. We brushed scraps of leaves

and picked stickers from each other's backs,
happily. Only human.
And, watching us—

only trees.

 

Poems by Kathleen Lynch: