This is all about sticks falling from trees,
but not until they’ve hung for a while.
Look up there where the wind frees
dead limbs from long denials.
They fall fast when they’ve hung a while.
You could see them as shattered gems
broken by gravity from long denials,
plunging head first through their own stems.
Walk to pick up their shattered gems
and you’re left with only snapped reminders
of gravity dragging down their stems
in one direction. They are not fliers,
and if you throw one it may remind you
of earthliness when it lands and breaks
in one direction. Could you take off flying
on impact? The sky opens, the oaks shake,
and your own earthliness lands and breaks
as if you were geode or falling star.
On impact, the sky opens, the oaks shake,
and you view yourself scattered like bars
of light, a quartz geode, or fallen stars—
the purpose of you spilling useless in the grass.
You view yourself scattered like bars
of gold. This illusion of sun does not last
to restore a sense of your purpose in grass.
Use, sign, symbol, or what might rise
of gold to fire an illusion that does not last
however you turn it or hold it high.
Use. Sign. Symbolize all that rises
back to the heights from which it dropped:
however you turn it or hold it high,
the sky itself won’t have it. It stops
your climb to heights from which sticks drop.
You’re not that tall. Your flights are steps.
The sky itself won’t have you and stops
your cresting. Dangling sticks don’t mend.
You’re not tall as a tree. Your flights are steps.
There’s only so much you can manage
cresting, and dangling sticks don’t mend.
In this vision, there’s so much damage
in the cloudscape of what you manage
you are mere dangling stick above your head
envisioning your future damage.
You watch yourself fall so fully dead
you envy the sticks above your head.
You wait for the gust of wind that decrees
you watch yourself fall—fully dead.
This isn’t all about sticks falling from trees.
Lisa Lewis has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Taxonomy of the Missing (WordWorks, 2018) and a chapbook, The Borrowing Days (Emrys, 2021). Recent work appears or is forthcoming in New Letters, Cloudbank, Action, Spectacle, North American Review, Puerto del Sol, Cream City Review, Florida Review, Agni Online, and elsewhere. She teaches in the creative writing program at Oklahoma State University and serves as editor-in-chief for the Cimarron Review.