Litany for Treetops

The way the wind breaks across a giraffe's neck,
the way the speeding air shakes the trees to press

their many leafy kisses along the cheeks of the beast,
the way she nuzzles the whispering leaves and eats

the stems and drinks the sap, all resinous and wet,
the way the meal is nothing but the earth respent

on the tallest and most living, and how the certainty
of ghosts means nothing to creatures on the Serengeti,

the way the steady breeze of feastings missed
forces the hungry calf to blossom, flower, extend.

Copyright © 2003 C. J. Sage All rights reserved
from 32 Poems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission