Sap

The trees have ears again, today
I am telling them about imagination.

The slender sprout at the foot
of his great oak mother listens

carefully as he should; he'll be
wider than a redwood cedar

before another crazy human
tries to have a conversation

with a twig. He asks me about
the definition of a dream, if

it's like the ghost of wind moving
through leaves without being caught

or shine of beetles poking through
soil when the moonlight reflects

off their jet black backs like
dark, wet jewels, then disappear.

These are tree dreams, I assure him.
Human dreams are more like sap

that drips down from a wound
in your bark or like winter when

you're hair falls out, you close
your eyes for awhile and remember

summer until summer
comes back. We talked

until the moon woke up;
the moon did not approve.