“Natter”

The elm tree, hip deep in snow last month,
now thrashes, furious as performing a sonata,
through every crook, turn and branching out
to the leaf buds at the last twigs. The tree
has a twin dancing in the glass tower opposite,
they have each other and the blue sky glint.
At their feet I am lonelier than both, asphalt
parking lot, up the inner stairs, at the top
a sketching class fetches the view from deep
inside the camera obscura of their eye: trees,
high-rise cranes, humans too small to matter,
the valley spread over their big white pads.
I carry this poem around in a palm notebook,
writing illegibly as I walk. Thank you, words,
for being another self to talk to, for your natter
that has crept again through cranny and crook.

Minnie Bruce Pratt

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Creative Commons 2010