Just look up and see
the shy way the limbs stretch
without contact across the sky
toward leafy neighbors like puzzle pieces
not yet snapped into place like a river
allowing light to filter through
the blank spaces, down down to the shadowy
sun-hungry understory— if you live
in an a city like mine you might need to leave
to see trees close enough to form a canopy—
like the way some folks move aside
so shorter people like me
can see the stage or the front of the room,
the way people like my neighbor—
if you call him that, if he understood
the idea of community over capital—
bought three lots and the zoning board,
claimed hardship —yes, hardship—
for permission to tear down the old
and bypass laws meant to protect light,
might have kept his outsized building
off his neighbors’ lot lines, might have
left space, the way trees make room
for the smaller folk trying to live
gently so close to the earth.
—
Ann E. Wallace is 2023-24 Poet Laureate of Jersey City, NJ and host and producer of The WildStory: A Podcast of Poetry and Plants for the Native Plant Society of New Jersey. She is the author of Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul (Kelsay Books) and Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag). Her work is online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Instagram @annwallace409.
