Planting Out

At night outside, trees led the eye back to the stars. The scatter of stars and the pattern of branches joined. The farthest bud and the farthest beginnings of life connected. 

On summer nights tree insects swarmed. I went outside batting scarab beetles from my face and wondering where the roar of wind came from. 

Moths on a windowpane held the shape of the tree behind them. The tree was a cut-out shadow against the stars. And the stars were a spiral of moths. 

Clouds settled in the tops of trees. The fretworked tips of leaves and moisture droplets combined. So it rained under the trees, but nowhere else, condensation forming a drip line. Boys climbed the trees with the aim of getting higher. In their hearts they raced the clouds, though a poem could have told them:

Too much rain

loosens trees.

In the hills giant oaks

fall upon their knees. 

You can touch parts

you have no right to

places only birds 

should fly to.