grandmothers ears

Maybe I'm deaf

When it comes to trees

I have my grandmother's ears.

The ones that

don't work  right.

The ears that signal

aesthetic deception

duplicitous

Like gargoyle's sitting

atop peaks

the whole while

knowing

they are filled with

packing peanuts

more air than substance 

No

when it comes to trees

I am holey-hollow too

The machinery

of bark-talking, wind-sweeping

leaf whistle whispering,

root-tapping tapestries of

language spreading out

to connect every other tree

in a forest -

That machinery has a cog

labelled "translator"

Lying in the refuse bin

new as the day it was

molded

into existence

Like my Grandmother 

and

her ears

Maybe they'll send me, too

to a finishing school

they'll tell me not to feel the

language of my birth

instead I'll be sung lullabies

The same ones Ancients

whisper-sing to mint fresh

Buds

And acorns

And pine cones 

swaddled 

But I won't know 

which way 

to

nuzzle my head 

treeward

I won’t know 

how to 

                                      root

They’ll be

blocking anthropogenic

meaning making

meaning breaking

building blocks 

language

taking

love letters -

stuffed down

messages in baby bottles

too slick to grip long enough

to suckle

nourishment

No, I will steal

my language

in the glances between

myself

and other students

like rambunctious monkeys hoping

tree to tree

defying 

the gravity that

anchors

language to dirt

and dust

and detritus

and root engorge humus

Maybe the language of trees

didn't sprout with me

in mind

Maybe, like my grandmother's

ears

I can't hear them whisper

behind my back

which is a small mercy

in a world

where trees could tell

one another

What it is their cousins and

cousins cousins

saw me do

when I was

twelve

Sneaking out at night

hand-hacking

horizontal slashes

through the underbrush

of the business of growing up

odd

My frenzied trail

fresh cut

laid behind me like

a psychopathic

panoply of pain

while the shrubbery

watches on

Yes, maybe I have my

grandmother's ears

so instead, I will

watch

like Netflix with the

sound off before

everyone started to 

keep the captioning on

I will surreptitiously

seat myself facing the broadside of trees

pretending these ears work

while I watch the

Old Oaks in the courtyard

chin wag, wandering

bemoanments

about the density and

migration patterns of

Monarch butterflies.

and when they look my way,

I will pantomime the words

trees use

with arms

branchlike

flailing

and hope they come out right

I will entertain

dreams of sameness

a tower of bounty

babbling

just like

those who don't

have

my

grandmother's

ears