Tree Funeral
At the tree funeral
you will find no one
reading from the Good Book.
There will be trees sawed off
and giant vehicles
taking them away to be
cut down further and shaped
into houses, chairs,
pencils, paper, and books.
Some are cleared away to
make mansions and golf
courses, to the chagrin
of nesting birds, squirrels,
and other dwellers
of trees. The funeral
goes on daily and not
many attend the
wake, still asleep, without
thinking of the future.
If the forests of
the world disappear, soon
we will go next, and our
final resting place
will have no shade from trees.
Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in West Covina, California, works in Los Angeles County, and is the author of Raw Materials (Pygmy Forest Press). His poetry, prose, and art has appeared in Black Petals, Blue Collar Review, Mad Swirl, Cowboy, River Dog Press, and Yellow Mama Webzine. His broadsides, chapbooks and poetry books have appeared in Alternating Current Press, Deadbeat Press, Four Feathers Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, New American Imagist, New Polish Beat, Poet's Democracy, Rogue Wolf Press, and Ten Pages Press. Luis recommends St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
