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The Torn Ozone Layer
We believe only humans can rip open the sky
through our genius, our minds so special
our inventions pierce the atmosphere,
to create a glorious display above,
when we really create sluggish brown smog
rising from factories we lack the will to fix,
eating holes in the planet’s wrap.
Painful to have punched a hole in
what really is planetary friendship,
though we think it smart to say ozone,
not realizing it is the combined care
of all creatures who exhale
fervor for one another.
Plants sing arias to steadfast trees
while these old sentinels, thankful
for melodies at their feet
send mists of joy shrouding their leafy tops,
before it ascends ever higher.
A blanket of atoms of affection
slipping over nature’s bodies
who lie in the bower of the planet.
This invisible quilt is sewn
by the real wizards
of our planet, since true magic
occurs when so many achieve
a mutual embrace
it encircles each one
as it fills the sky.
The Trees Speak
We do not fear death as we take in light
changing its glow into waving spirits
leaping from our branches long before
the falling leaves that follow.
We stand in silent meditation for decades
of inner retreat, spreading calm
like a fine mist until the planet
steadies on the axis of our dream.
A rhythm borrows from the resolve
knotted within our trunks as we quietly
look upon you chaotic younger siblings,
as you lunge against each other,
rending yourselves, unless we can
guide you into a circular path
like the birds we show the way home
from spring into fall.
We touch sky and draw upon the earth
gathering others into a sheltering bower,
a pirouette from root to prayer, sky
to branch, a space where eyes find rest.
We lose limbs, suffer insects burrowing
into flesh, blights devour whole continents
of our families, but we stay upright,
grateful for the reach of remaining branches.
We practice loss each fall
as stripped to the humility of bare
grey wrinkled skin unable to hide
our blemishes or old scars.
Even in your war with our species,
we are silent when companions are cut
into the slabs of lost consciousness
of the simpler moments on this planet.
Our bodies are sawed, nailed together,
painted, unnoticed in what you call home
while we hold the planet on its course
hoping you find your lost roots.
Glen A. Mazis has published 100 poems in literary journals, including Rosebud, The North American Review, Sou'wester, Spoon River Poetry Review, Willow Review, Atlanta Review, Reed Magazine and Asheville Poetry Review; and the collections, The River Bends in Time, The Body Is a Dancing Star and Bodies of Space and Time. He is the 2019 winner of the Malovrh-Fenlon Poetry Prize.