Juniperus Occidentalus, occidentalus

a poem by Tonia Stevens

Junk tree, noxious weed of the west,
water-wresting wastrel...
or so they'll have us think.
What value your resilience,
you life-enhancing shade and shelter,
if your knotted trunks won't plane
to nailable compliance?
How much is your icy aromatic balm
worth on Wall Street?
You live, if unmolested, a millennium or more,
you furrowed trunk in shredded robes,
spreading wide your twisted branches,
sprouting needles sharp as pins
or rubber segments scented gin,
rose-shaped cones,
rusty seeds, and berries frosted blue.
Choruses of birds nest safely in your arms,
and legions of deer rest, contented, at your feet.
Insect armies navigate
your velvet mossy islands,
and burrowing rodents cache their treasure
underneath your toes.
But withered souls with coins for eyes
deny your scared charge,
name you plague and miscreant,
burn your flesh, and call that "management,"
rip you out, chop you down,
saw you into firewood, and turn your patch of ground
to sunburned sage and withered wisps of brown.

Tonia Stevens

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