Apology to Trees

We lived under live oaks
on the backside of the island,
big as a house, limbs akimbo,
canopy dense with catbriar

making natural dark rooms
from the hot hot sun. We hung
hunted deer from back-leg
branches, splitting the carcasses

with dull knives, spilling blood
& entrails onto the roots, never
thinking what the tree wanted,
one damn indignation

& hatchets slung into tree bark
as if they were meant to hold there.
Too impatient to carve names,

names too unimportant
to say, we answered to nicknames:
Turtle, Froggy, Junior & Lobsterhead.
Slept under those same trees

next to sputtering fires built too
close to trunks, too drunk to swat
mosquitos. Nature was a pock-marked
face in wood-smoked clothes.

Island time was marked by trees
knocked over, Hazel (in ’58), Donna (’61)
or Ginger (’71): the rainwater ponds
from root balls were also nature—

freshwater vibrating, wriggling
baby snakes & tree frog eggs.
Metal tub of boiling seawater
wedged over a fire, the oysters still

muddy, hissing & popping open,
hot brine spilling from mouths,
cutting lines down our dirty necks,
Empty shells piled around

trunks, and more shells entwined
beneath roots & broken
Algonquin pottery. And on
it goes, so many leaves

shedding raindrops as
roots remain dry. I will
stand under broad shade
& say that I’m sorry, late

of course, but this too
is my nature, I confess.