By Poet Laureate Christopher Watkins Pruning Early morning, and like middle-schoolerschicken-pimpled beside a swimming pool, the once-mighty vines stand humble, naked in their rows;I swear they’re shivering—a finishing schoolof apprentice scarecrowspracticing on snowflakes… I walk the morning-after battlefield — the fightan ancient rite of deconstruction —marveling at the meagerquintessence of these vines: arms thinas antennae, slender trunks poorly mimickingtheir elder’s muscularity; reminded of a bubblegumcartoon, I imagine Old Vines walking byand kicking sand in all the littlevine’s faces, then stealing off their girls… A long year ahead, and I have no song I can singto march them onwards, but…
“Pruning” by Christopher Watkins
