the particular tree

If I had to be
a tree, I think,
I would be spread
in canopy wide, with
reverse-canopy of spreading
roots, underneath and out
to drink
and dig,
and hide.

I'd be good
for several things.
For hammocks, if
there's a neighbor
near. Good for swings,
for somebody's kid.
And in the Spring,
I'd bloom big clusters, large
white petals - a second Fall,
appears beneath my canopy.
Drifting in piles upon
the last of Fall's still
crinkly, dusty bed
of me.

My shed and lovely
lungs, my dry and decomposing
leaves (apparently, nobody rakes
around here): a warm deep falling snow
of bee-kissed petals instead of flakes,

to reenact and memorialize what seasons bring,
lest we forget, eternally.

I'd pile me deep
in cast-off selves,
a blanket to keep me warm-pretend
in this fake-winter Spring I send
myself, these lovelier days
without end. (Oh, let me
pretend.)

But I'd never fruit,
because I can't think
whether any fruit-tree
has blooms like these,
with which I do slow
magic show
to amaze.

And I'm not the sort
to say "Let's see!" No

I'm not the sort
of tree to go
fruiting confused
and ignorant ways.